How to... the Valentine's Day shopping list and planner

You will need

For the canapés:

100g Freedom Food labelled smoked salmon
1 small tub crème fraiche
1 pack ready-made mini blini
Handful of chopped chives

For the main course:

1Kg FF labelled open-boned or half leg of lamb – ask your butcher to bone the lamb for you.
150ml teriyaki sauce
2tbsp runny honey
1 tbsp olive oil
12 shallots
1 pack Pak choi
1 handful of fresh mange tout
150ml (uncooked volume) long grain or basmati rice
1 tbsp Sesame oil and rice wine vinegar

For dessert:

300g good quality dark chocolate with a minimum of 70% cocoa solids
180g unsalted butter
180g unrefined caster sugar
4 Freedom Food labelled medium eggs plus 1 egg yolk
115g ground almonds
pinch of salt
115g plain flour, sifted
1 tsp baking powder, sifted
100g unsalted pistachio nuts, shelled and chopped
Good quality vanilla ice-cream

Planner:

If possible, marinate the lamb and make the brownies either the night before your special Valentine’s meal or first thing in the morning. Keep the brownies in an air-tight container at room temperature. The marinating lamb should be kept covered in the fridge in a non-metallic dish, if you have time to turn it during the day and re-baste with the marinade it will help.

The following works on the premise that your guest is arriving 30 mins before you are planning to sit down to eat.

1 hour to go:

1. Put the oven on to pre-heat (250 degrees C / Gas 9)
2. Prepare the smoked salmon blinis on a serving plate by adding a small blob of crème fraiche to each blinis, on top add strips of smoked salmon followed by another small blob of crème fraiche.  Sprinkle with chopped chives.
3. Take the marinated lamb out of the fridge and oil the shallots. Put the lamb into the oven 45 mins before you want to eat.
4. Lay the table
5. Wash and prepare the Pak choi and mange tout
6. With 30 mins to go, your guest will hopefully arrive and you can crack open that bottle of bubbly and serve the canapés.
7. 15 minutes to go – take the lamb out of the oven, cover with tin foil and leave it to rest. Put the rice on to cook (try Delia Smith’s fool proof way of cooking rice which means you don’t have to watch over it like a hawk). 
8. 5 minutes to go – heat up your wok with a table spoon of sesame oil. Stir fry your veg adding a splash of rice wine vinegar. Cook until the vegetables for about three minutes (they should be cooked but still vibrant in colour with a little bite), then you are ready to serve. 
9. On each plate put a bed of rice, shallots and stir-fry vegetables, slice the roast lamb adding 2-3 slices to each plate. 
10. When you are ready for dessert you can warm the brownies slightly by popping them into a cool oven for five minutes or serve them cold with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

NOTE: you will have plenty of lamb left over – don’t worry – it is delicious as leftovers, but it’s better to look like you have plenty (so neither trying to stuff nor starve your guest!). Equally, you will have brownies left over – they will last a few days in an air-tight container.