Good morning, and Happy Valentine’s Day. It’s a night for awkward moments in public spaces, fumblingly shared entrees, Champagne that’s not as good as you imagined it would be, with cold, chocolate-covered strawberries for dessert.
Or is that just me? I’ve never liked performative restaurant meals. I don’t want to celebrate romance at a two-top at the one place I was able to get a reservation (at the last minute!) and to depend on others for the success of the meal. One exhausted line cook, one overstretched server, one bad song on a playlist and now I’m in a beef with my wife? I don’t do well on that sort of stage.
Instead: home cooking. A controlled environment. A meal I know I can serve to smiles over candlelight. Steak au poivre (above)!
Alexa Weibel’s recipe is a stunner, using one large, super-marbled rib-eye steak to deliver an incredible dish of crusty, seared and peppery beef in a pan sauce rich with brandy and heavy cream. Lex makes like a chef and fans thick slices of the steak out over the sauce instead of napping the meat with it, which somehow makes everything look more lavish.
Featured Recipe
Steak au Poivre for Two
I like this dish with a thatch of crunchy watercress on the side and crispy hash browns. That and a good, chilled Bandol, with soft and chewy sugar cookies for dessert? Hearts!
Alternatively, there’s a great Korean dish called jajangmyeon: a thick, inky gravy of black-bean sauce, pork and onions ladled over plump noodles and served with sweet pickled daikon. It’s a dish for the unattached, Korean lore has it, served on what’s called Black Day, a celebration of “couples’ hell, singles’ heaven,” as the K-pop band Pascol called it in a 2014 anthem, “Merry Black Day.” Black Day is on April 15, but if you’re flying solo tonight or just don’t want to celebrate Valentine’s Day, I figure there’s no reason to wait.
Either way, once we make it to Saturday, I think it would be great to make Korsha Wilson’s adaptation of the chef Rasheeda Purdie’s recipe for potlikker ramen, a big bowl of noodles with collards and smoked turkey in potlikker broth. With maybe a peach cobbler for dessert? Deploying a bag of frozen peaches in February is one of life’s amazements, a chance to transport yourself to summer for considerably less than a flight to Melbourne.
I might make some balsamic glaze, as well, to tart up an Italian sub for Sunday lunch, in advance of a long walk at Breezy Point looking for snowy owls — or a few hours on the couch napping through the Genesis Invitational.
Then mushroom Bourguignon for dinner? Or an asparagus, goat cheese and tarragon tart? The romance doesn’t end!
There are plenty more recipes to warm the heart waiting for you on New York Times Cooking. Go scroll around and see what you find. You need a subscription to do so, of course. Subscriptions are the fuel in our stoves. Please, if you haven’t already, would you consider subscribing today? Thanks.
If you need help with your account, please reach out for help: cookingcare@nytimes.com. Someone will get back to you. Or you can write to me if you want to deliver an apple or tender a worm: hellosam@nytimes.com. I can’t respond to every letter. (There’s a lot of mail.) But I read each one I get.
Now, in case you missed it, I spent some time with my colleagues recently at Torrisi in New York, attempting to tell the story of this restaurant for our video cameras. See what you think.
It has precious little to do with duck breasts or buttermilk, but I came across a Carl Hiaasen novel I missed the first time through: “Lucky You,” from 1997. That’s a fun few hours in a comfortable chair.
Keeping with our Valentine’s theme, you might want to take a look at The New York Times Book Review’s cool new tool that will help you find your next (or your first) romance book.
Finally, here are the Buzzcocks — “Ever Fallen in Love” — live on “Top of the Pops” in 1978. Natural emotions. I’ll see you on Sunday.
