A Valentine’s Day Offering.

Today I have for you a Valentine’s Day recipe which you may like to prepare for your beloved. It is quite different from the usual blog offerings at this time. It is not sweet. It contains no chocolate, oysters, or champagne. It does not require a heart-shaped cookie cutter. I give it to you in advance of the day to give you time to source the ingredients.

Love in Disguise (to dress)

After well cleaning, stuff a calf’s heart; cover it an inch thick with good forcemeat; then roll it in vermicelli; put it into a dish with a little water, and send it to the oven. When done, serve it with its own gravy in the dish. This forms a pretty side dish.

The Female’s Friend, and General Domestic Adviser, by R.Huish, Esq. (London, 1837)

If you really want to impress, you could serve it with a fine sauce made from a recipe in the same book. You will remember that ‘love apples’ were an early name for tomatoes, on account of their supposed aphrodisiac properties when they were introduced to Europe from the New World in the early sixteenth century. The old name must surely be auspicious for tomorrow?

Love Apple Sauce (to make)

Take a dozen love apples, very ripe, and of a fine red; take off the stalks, open, and take out the seeds, and press them in the hand to take out the water; put the expressed love apples into a stewpan with a size of an egg of butter, a bay leaf, and a little thyme; put in a spoonful of good cullis, or the top of broth, called top-pot, which will be better; when it is thus prepared, rub it through a search [sieve], and put it into a stewpan with two spoonfuls of cullis; reduce it to the consistence of a light bouillie; put in a little salt, and a small quantity of cayenne pepper.

Quotation for the Day.

Cooking is at once child's play and adult joy. And cooking done with care is an act of love**

Craig Claiborne.