While tradition has couples most often celebrating Valentine’s Day by going out to dinner, there’s nothing wrong with taking a new tack this year.

What about cooking dinner for your sweetheart — a romantic candlelit dinner, paired with his or her favorite wines, right at home?

Come to think of it, why not plan a cozy home-cooked Valentine’s Day dinner next week, maybe even invite another couple or two — your best friends — to join you on this special occasion for lovers?

We’ve even got a special menu for you, just to save you the trouble of planning as well as cooking it. We asked the culinary team at Julia’s Kitchen — executive chef Jeff Mosher and pastry chef Debbie Yee-Henen — to provide a few recipes for this special holiday dinner, recipes that can easily be adapted to the home cook’s skills and workaday schedule.

Sure, you could easily suggest that your significant other take you to dinner at Julia’s Kitchen, just to see how Jeff and Debbie work their magic. But you could also save that treat for another night later this month, maybe before you attend a concert or take in a movie at Copia.

For the first course, chef Mosher suggests tempting your main squeeze and friends with seared scallops, which he serves on fennel puree and drizzles with blood orange beurre blanc. There’s also a nice textural contrast with a fennel and citrus salad. This is how Mosher serves the dish, but he feels the home cook does not have to serve both puree and beurre blanc for the dish to be a success.

Mosher feels scallops by themselves are an indulgent, textural offering for the Valentine’s Day menu. He pointed out the fennel puree can be made a day or two in advance of the dinner party, while the fennel and citrus salad can be made early in the day. “But you should make the sauce close to the time you are serving the dish,” he added, “or only a few hours ahead at most.”

The main course is crispy black bass paired with parsnip puree, wild mushrooms and arugula, napped with a red wine reduction, which is optional. Also optional are the parsnip chips topping off the fish (for which he’s provided a recipe anyway).

Again, the puree can be made a day ahead and the mushrooms can be sautéed well prior to your guests’ arrival. If you chose to include the red wine reduction, it, too, can be prepared several hours in advance of dinner.

And pastry chef Yee-Henen says dessert can be made the night before your dinner, or even that morning.

Her recipe is for a traditional Red Velvet Cake. “Many people believe this cake originated in the South,” she says of the unusual red cake with cream cheese frosting. “It’s served as far north as Canada and, at one time, the cooks at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York laid claim to the original recipe.

“Delicious and moist, the cake is characterized by its reddish-brown hue — the result of the reaction of acidic vinegar and buttermilk with the cocoa powder, along with a touch of red food coloring.”

Traditionally, the cake is frosted with a white cream cheese buttercream, she notes. Her recipe for this frosting is included, along with “a decadent chocolate glaze that would be an ideal finish for a heart-shaped version to serve on Valentine’s Day.”

Julia’s Kitchen’s pastry chef admitted that using both buttercream and chocolate glaze on her red velvet cake may seem like overkill. So, the home cook could just frost the cooled cakes with the buttercream and omit the glaze.

Her one important tip in preparing this cake: “Make sure all the ingredients are at room temperature when you get started.”

 

Dinner at

Julia’s Kitchen

The culinary team at Julia’s Kitchen is offering three options for Valentine’s Day dinner, served between 5:30 and 9:30 p.m.

Diners can opt for three, four or five courses, at prices of $60, $70 and $80, respectively.

Options for the first course are hearts of palm salad with Copia arugula, toasted pine nuts and black truffle vinaigrette or carrot ginger soup with tempura sweet prawns. Second course choices are crab and avocado Napoleon or pan-roasted quail with crispy sweetbreads. Main course selections include pan-roasted beef striploin with truffled parsnip puree, almond-crusted black cod with forbidden rice and Copia choy, plus mustard-crusted lamb loin with sweet potato croquette.

The evening’s cheese course, ideal for Valentine’s Day, is a Cypress Grove goat’s milk cheese from Petaluma called Amour.

Chef Yee-Henen’s dessert choices include floating heart meringues with raspberry consommé and mascarpone cream, red velvet cake with strawberry sauce and passion fruit soufflé with vanilla ice cream.

For reservations, call 265-5700.