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 Valentine's
Day Delights
Back to . . .
Appetizer & Drinks
Main Course
In keeping with the chosen
theme, let's make a Platter of Hearts
for our main event. Suggested ingredients are
beef, pork & shrimp with carrots, celery, cucumber &
potatoes; take your pick of your favorites . . .
Prepare the potatoes by
peeling and cutting them into half-inch thick oval
pieces. Boil till done and set them aside.
Only cut and form each slice into hearts when its time
to plate. Mix a sauce of melted butter, coarse
ground black pepper and finely chopped parsley flakes
for use with the potatoes later.
Make several cucumber hearts
as shown earlier. You can either use un-cooked
sticks of carrots and celery; or if you prefer, boil the
sticks for several minutes first. Cut the carrots
in the same way as the cucumbers and form into tiny
orange hearts. For the celery, you will need to
select sticks with cross-sections that are crescent
shaped with one end rounded and the other end sharp or
pointed, just like the shape of a big comma. Slice
the celery stick diagonally, then take two adjacent
pieces, flip the left piece to the left and the right
piece to the right, now slide them together and from
little green hearts.
Marinade
inch-thick oval pieces of beef steak (Rib-Eye or New
York Strip steaks will do nicely) and pork loin with red
wine, freshly ground black pepper & a pinch of salt for at least
half an hour. Then grill to the doneness you
prefer and put aside to rest. Create a red wine
truffle sauce for the meats. Finely chop fresh
garlic and fry in a pan with butter & olive oil.
Set aside a couple spoons of this mix to make the sauce
for your shrimp later. Finely chop up a truffle or
two; you may also mix in some chopped mushrooms if you
like. Add the truffles and a liberal splash of red
wine into the pan and give it a few stirs. Trim
with mustard and worcestershire sauce to suit your
taste.
Prepare a couple of medium
to large shrimp in the same way as for your appetizer.
For the shrimp sauce, take the garlic fried in butter &
olive oil and add in tomato sauce, some lemon juice, and
a dash or two of Tabasco sauce if you like a kick of hot
spice; mix well.
Take an extra large dinner
plate and lay the pair of shrimp in the center to form a
big red/pink heart; spoon the shrimp sauce into the
middle to fill out the heart. Next, slice your
steak and pork, then form into hearts and place onto the
plate. Using a teaspoon, carefully pour the red wine
truffle sauce across the hearts formed by the steak and
pork, from bottom left to top right just like cupid's
arrow shooting through a heart. Fill out the top
of the platter with potato and celery hearts.
Spoon on the butter, pepper & parsley sauce you mixed
earlier. Place your cucumber and carrot hearts in
the remaining empty spaces and decorate with your
favorite salad dressing.
Your beautiful Platter
of Hearts is ready to be served . . .
Finally . . .
Dessert
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