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.

Shape
No prizes for guessing which one. Begin with a salad of vine-ripened tomatoes that you slice thinly downwards, not across their middles, to produce a heart. Interlace with slices of fresh Mozzarella you have turned into hearts by cutting a V-wedge almost halfway down through the ball. Sprinkle with torn basil leaves and good olive oil.

Follow with several small hamburger patties shaped into a heart, grilled or fried, surrounded by heart-shaped fried potatoes. For these, cut another V wedge along the side of a large par-boiled and cooled peeled potato you cooked earlier, sliced thickly into hearts. While you eat the starter, let them gently fry in a slick of oil with a knob of butter till gold on both sides. Serve with a heart-shaped dollop of ketchup.

With strawberries available year round, pick 4 or 5 each then puree 250g more with the juice of a lemon and sugar to taste. Spread a slick across a plate, stud with the remaining strawberries sliced into three and blob whipped cream in the centre in as much of a heart shape as you can contrive.

The aphrodisiac route
This is a tried-and-tested one. Noone really knows if it works, but it’s certainly worth a try. Oysters are said to have magical powers, but be sure they are squeaky fresh. The same, apparently, goes for tuna steaks. And snails. Truffles shaved over poached eggs can work wonders, and anything chocolate for pudding. Finish with a strong cup of coffee. Caffeine is an aphrodisiac. More important, it will keep him awake.

You might be forgiven for thinking the aphrodisiac effect relates strongly to the cost of the ingredient. But since the psychological reaction to food is mostly to do with its sensuous smell and look, a much cheaper bowl of pasta in a wonderful sauce that you can spoon into your beloved’s mouth could be far more effective. Precede it with a trout mousse he can lick off your finger and follow with a bowl of chilled grapes (seedless – you don’t want him spitting at you) that you languidly peel as you feed them to him.

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