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3 ways to feed your lover

What’s the best way to your loved one’s heart? (And it ain’t through his stomach with a breadknife). We know food works – but how to choose a menu that guarantees romance? Julia Watson picks three of the best

Romantic meals can be such a tricky business. Planning the menu takes serious thought. Is there any garlic to wreck the breath? Are there any beans to wreck the, er, digestion? Any spinach to coat your teeth, or shellfish to upset the stomach? Then, what’s the most seductive music? And where did you hide the candles? And is that a smell of burning coming from the kitchen?

Golden rule for romance – keep the food simple. Choose something that won’t take too long to cook, and won’t be too heavy to eat. Either could find your beloved slumped in sleep on the sofa.

There are three choices: you can go for colour, or shape, or myth.

Colour

For a menu where everything is red, begin with smoked salmon. (Nerves will make you spill tomato soup down your front.) For something different, add a sauce of sour cream with chopped fresh dill and a teaspoon of horseradish whisked in. Dribble it over the fish in the shape of a heart, and serve with warmed-up ready-made blinis.

For the main course, close the kitchen door, turn the extractor on full and over a medium high heat on a ridged grill pan, grill two lamb chops each that have been marinating all day in olive oil, the juice of a lemon and some chopped fresh rosemary.

Cook three minutes each side for a rosy interior. Lay them back to back on a plate to resemble a heart, with a salad of red radicchio and shavings of raw fennel.

Finish with a scoop of raspberry sorbet served in a Martini glass with a shot of raspberry eau-de-vie poured over.

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