An Easy and Elegant French Lamb Dinner for Two for Valentine’s Day

You want to cook your salad dressing

I can’t think of the last time I made a warm egg-based salad dressing by whisking an egg and mustard and lemon juice in a bowl over a pot of simmering water until it gets frothy and thick—scratch that, I’d never made salad dressing this way before. But after following Glamour’s recipe, I’m hooked. I love how it’s creamy and rich without actually containing any dairy, and how light and frothy it is—thickly coating the watercress leaves without being overpowering. I cut down on the sugar in the dressing and cut out the bacon in favor of pumpkin seeds, toasted with a pinch of smoked paprika to get a more modern hit of smoky crunch.

Watercress Salad With Warm Mustard DressingGet This Recipe

Photo by Chelsea Kyle, Prop Styling by Alex Brannian, Food Styling by Ali Nardi

There’s nothing better than pink baby lamb chops

I love my lamb chops a little pink. But the temperature in the original Glamour recipe directs you to cook them to is 145°F, which would leave you with medium-well chops instead. I cooked them to 125°F instead, bumping up the rosemary (and using fresh instead of dried) and adding a touch more garlic, too (don’t worry, nothing too fragrant here). Lamb chops are one of those things that it can be hard to eat with a knife and fork. But that hardly matters. Don’t be shy about picking up your food and eating it with your hands—watching your date enjoy eating in such a visceral, hands-on way is always sexy. Just make sure you’ve set out some sturdy cloth napkins.

Rosemary Rack of Lamb With Roasted Potatoes and Carrots for TwoGet This Recipe

More Butter, Especially Compound Butter, Is Always a Good Thing

Some things never change: Then as now, people love crispy Hasselbeck (aka Swedish) potatoes. The potatoes are thinly sliced almost all the way through, then slathered in butter before baking. The carrots in the menu are glazed in even more butter. To infuse both sides with more flavor, I created simple compound butters for them: A miso and smoked paprika butter to give the potatoes an umami boost, and a honey and coriander butter to give sweetness and zest to the carrots. And since I already had the oven on for the potatoes and the lamb, I decided to roast the carrots instead of glazing them.