Cooking at Home for Valentine's Day

Jessica and I like to celebrate Valentine's Day with a great meal together, but we've found that eating out can be overly expensive, crowded, and generally limited with set menus.  Instead, for the past few years, we've cooked dinner at home to make an equally fantastic meal with far less hassle.

This year, we started with beef crostini topped with caramelized onions and then seared scallops with Parmesan risotto for the main course.  While the two courses were not overly fancy, they were both a step or two above our typical home-cooked dinners.

The first key to preparing a special meal at home is finding good ingredients.  Instead of using the local grocery store, I traveled to Fresh Market to get the scallops and beef tenderloin for the meal.  Fresh Market may have higher prices than other stores, but the quality is also a notch above and well worth it for a special meal.  Also, the additional cost pales in comparison to the savings gained by eating at home rather than out.  Restaurants charge $30 for an eight-ounce filet and $20 or so for an order of scallops, and yet I was able to purchase both for a combined $20.  Even factoring in the preparation (which for our meal wasn't too difficult), the markup is incredible!

First for the beef crostini... I was inspired to make this dish from the Sandwich King on Food Network, who made something similar in one of his episodes.  My goal was to sear the beef (and then finish it roasting in the oven at 500 degrees) to a medium rare.  Creating the sear is extremely important; a lot of flavor is created with that crust as salt and pepper join the caramelized beef flavor to add a great exterior "seasoning" for the meat.  The concept of "locking in the juices" isn't really accurate, but visual and taste effects with the sear are great.  I cooked my filet on the stove top on medium high with a bit of butter, and the sear was perfect!

In concert with preparing the steak, I prepared my caramelized onions.  I started with a whole sweet onion, a bit of olive oil mixed with butter, and a fair amount of salt.  My knife skills are not great but I generally cut the onions to a small dice so that the final product is almost creamy rather than large strands.  For me, patience is the key with these onions... I probably simmer them down for 45 minutes or so to make sure they cook slowly and brown nicely. 

Once I finished both the steak and the caramelized onions, it was time to assemble.  I purchased rosemary olive oil crostini to add extra flavor, and then I layered the following ingredients:

- A few shreds of Parmesan cheese

- A couple crystals of kosher salt

- A slice of the seared tenderloin

- A "dollop" of onions

Both the cheese and (obviously) the salt helped bolster the other flavors in the dish.  I also let the beef cool down to room temperature (because that is common in recipes I found), and that worked well.  Jessica and I thoroughly enjoyed the bite-sized crostini and I thought each and every ingredient added something useful to the flavor.

The scallops and risotto were far simpler to prepare, although equally delicious.  For the scallops, I simply dried them and then coated each with salt and pepper.  I buttered my cast iron skillet (adding a bit of canola oil to help not burn the butter as easily) and waited for it to brown, then added the scallops and cooked 2-3 minutes per side.  The result was perfect... tender and just cooked through in the center with a nice crunchy sear on each side.  In the future, I'll ask for more similarly sized scallops because one was much larger than the other three, impacting cooking time.

For my risotto, I use ~ 1 cup of arborio rice with reduced-sodium chicken stock (normally 4 cups or so).  I started by sauteing garlic, then toasting the rice and deglazing with white wine.  For the next 20-25 minutes, I stirred and added the stock until the rice was tender.  For the final step, I added a handful of Parmesan cheese for flavor.  This is one of my wife's favorite dishes that I prepare, and it's actually quite easy.  Just remember though, that SALT is critical to bringing out the flavors!

While our Valentine's Day dinner lacked the fanciness that you can find at restaurants around the Triangle, it matched the flavor and variety at a fraction of the cost.  With a few simple recipes and a couple of great ingredients, we were able to prepare and enjoy a wonderful, home-cooked meal!