Taigan Fetch Magazine by Taigan

In my long career of cooking Valentine’s Day dinners, I’ve made six-course extravaganzas centered entirely around ossetra caviar, I’ve book-ended three-course dinners with dazzling soufflés from Mastering the Art of French Cooking (cheese to start, chocolate to finish), I’ve added a flurry of shaved black truffles to Joel Robuchon’s already sublime potato puree. For my first Valentine’s dinner with my husband, I slaved over George Perrier’s sauce for filet (from the excellent Le Bec Fin Recipes) that required homemade beef stock, a bottle of good Bordeaux, and two whole days to make.

They were memorable meals, but this year all the fuss and the fine ingredients don’t feel right somehow—and not just because the price of ossetra has gone through the roof. In retrospect, it all feels a little over-produced, a little uptight. And I was showing off at least as much as I was showing that I cared.

This year I am thinking Italian. For one thing, I’m addicted to the new Silver Spoon: Pasta, an indispensable compendium of the simplest and the best pasta sauces known to man. For another, what could possibly be sexier than a perfectly cooked plate of pasta with a lusty Italian sauce? Especially if the pasta is Penne Arrabbiata. Technically, arrabiatta means “angry style” because of the heat of the red chile peppers in the recipe—but that heat could just as easily translate into passion of another sort.

To begin I might have a simple arugula salad tossed with lots of lemon juice and the wonderful extra virgin olive oil from Marco Zanetti—along with shavings of the best parmesan you can find. Or hold the parmesan and accompany the greens with a dollop of luxurious burrata with or without bruschetta. For dessert, make the irresistible Chocolate Nemesis from the River Café Cookbook, another must-have Italian cookbook from one of my very favorite London restaurants. It is so easy and so good that anyone you make it for will be putty in your hands.

I love the earthy simplicity of this dinner—the whole thing takes less than an hour. Serve the pasta on South of Market’s handsome white pasta plates—they are the perfect heft and size. For wine, go with a Sangiovese from Tuscany and serve it in the reassuringly generous burgundy glasses from Spiegelau at Star Provisions. – Julia Reed


Penne Arrabbiata
Serves 4

6 tablespoons oil
2 garlic cloves
1/2 fresh chile, seeded and chopped
1 pound 2 ounces canned chopped tomatoes, drained
12 ounces penne lisce
1 tablespoon chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
salt

Heat the oil in a skillet, add the garlic cloves and chile, and cook
until the garlic browns. Remove the cloves from the pan and discard.
Add the tomatoes to a pan, season with salt, and cook for about 15
minutes. Cook the penne in a large pan of salted boiling water until
al dente, then drain, and tip into the skillet. Toss over high heat
for a few minutes, then transfer to a warm serving dish. Sprinkle
with the parsley and serve immediately.


Easy Chocolate Nemesis

12 oz. chocolate 70%
2 sticks unsalted butter
5 organic eggs
1 cup superfine sugar

Heat the oven to 300 degrees.

Using extra butter, grease a 10-inch round cake pan and line with
baking parchment

Break the chocolate into pieces and melt with the butter in a bowl
over simmering water. Beat the eggs and 5 tablespoons of the sugar in
an electric mixer until the volume quadruples.

Heat the remaining sugar with 7 tablespoons water until dissolved into
a light syrup. Pour the hot syrup into the melted chocolate and cool
slightly.

Add the chocolate to the eggs and beat slowly until the mixture is
combined. Pour into the pan.

Put a folded dish towel in the bottom of a roasting pan. Put in the
cake and add enough hot water to come three-quarters of the way up the
side of the cake pan.

Bake in the oven for 1 hour until set. Leave the cake to cool in the
water before unmolding.

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