The Aphrodisiac Encyclopaedia

by Mark Douglas Hill

  A moderate-sized steak provides more than the recommended daily dose of zinc and iron. A deficiency in either of these two minerals is strongly correlated to low libido and sexual malfunction in both men and women. The amino acids stirring the pot are tyrosine and arginine. Tyrosine is essential in the production of both dopamine and epiphedrine (adrenaline) – neurotransmitters connected to sex and aggression, and perhaps responsible for the murky link between the two. Arginine is more of a lover than a fighter, boosting the body’s nitric oxide levels. Nitric oxide is something of a sexual superhero: lord of the trouser-tent and irrigator extraordinaire of the female forest.

  Like all ostensibly simple things, cooking a steak well is surprisingly difficult. First off you need to have a good relationship with your butcher. Cajole him into releasing his finest dry-aged slab into your grateful hands. My general preference is for bone-in rib steak, aka the fabulous côte de boeuf. However, as two is the magic number for most affairs of the heart, I will focus on the shared pleasures of the porterhouse T-bone. Prepare it alla Fiorentina with a rocket salad and bottle of Chianti on the side. There is only one better way to spend time with your loved one, and you can do that immediately afterwards.

  Bistecca alla Fiorentina

  Porterhouse T-bone steak : 1

  Rock salt : Lots

  Rosemary : 4 large sprigs

  Balsamic vinegar : 75 ml

  Extra virgin olive oil : 75 ml

  Lemon : 1

  Rocket : 100 g

  Charcoal, wood fire or griddle pan : 1

  Sea salt and pepper : to taste

  This recipe needs some advance planning as the curing and marinating process takes over 5 hours. First select a dry-aged steak of prime beef. It should be about 4 cm thick, well marbled (with fat distributed evenly throughout the meat) and dry to the touch. Stick to a quality butcher as supermarkets rarely sell dry-aged meat. If you want to go authentic, track down some Chianina beef, which comes from the massive white oxen reared in Tuscany and Umbria in Italy.

  Place the steak on a bed of rock salt and cover in more rock salt. Leave for 2 hours. Remove the steaks from the salt, rinse with water and pat dry with a clean kitchen towel.

  Roughly chop the rosemary and press into each side of the steak. Mix the balsamic vinegar and olive oil and pour over your steak. The dish really benefits from a top-quality balsamic vinegar so go with the best you can afford.

  Leave the steak for 3 hours, turning once or twice.

  Remove the steak from the marinade. Reserve both the marinade and the rosemary.

  The fire to cook the meat on should be hot, but the flames should have died a little. Set the grill over the fire at a height where you can hold your hand for barely a couple of seconds because it is so hot. If you are indoors use a heavy cast-iron griddle pan – lightly oiled and heated until it is very hot.

  Pat the steak with paper towel to ensure it is totally dry. Throw half the rosemary on to the fire (or into the griddle pan) and place the steak on the hot grill to sear in the fragrant smoke. After a couple of minutes the steak should come easily off the grill; flip it on to the uncooked side, throw on the remaining rosemary and season the cooked side with sea salt and pepper.

  Once the second side is seared, raise the grill a little to slightly reduce the heat and continue flipping and seasoning the steak every couple of minutes until it is done. On a fire, rare should take about 16 minutes, medium-rare should take about 20 minutes. If you are using a griddle pan the steak will cook quicker – reduce the cooking time by about 5 minutes.

  Remove the steak from the fire and loosely cover in foil. Leave to rest for half the cooking time, then cut the tenderloin and loin steaks away from the T-bone. Carve into thick slices.

  Present on a large wooden board with the cut meat fanning out from the T-bone and serve with lemon wedges and a large pile of rocket dressed in the reserved marinade.

  When rare steak just isn’t raw enough, there is only one way to go. Steak tartare is sushi for the steak lover. Minced cuts of the best beef served mooing on the plate. If that doesn’t unleash primal urges nothing will. There are as many recipes for steak tartare as there are those who eat it. The classic version seasons the beef (or sometimes horse) with capers, Worcestershire sauce, shallot, gherkins and mustard, serving it with a raw egg yolk. The bon viveur’s version is something of a departure, dispensing with the raw egg yolk and replacing it with the olé of peppery 100 per cent agave silver tequila and the sizzle of a seared crust. This cooked style is known in France as ‘aller-retour’, and in the USA as ‘black and blue’ – charred on the outside and raw in the middle. Serve with melba toast and sliced avocado.

  Agave Steak Tartare served ‘Black and Blue’

  Dry-aged fillet steak : 400 g

  Silver tequila : 2 tbsp

  Lime juice : 1 tbsp

  Fish sauce : 1 tbsp

  Black pepper : ½ tsp

  Tabasco : 2 tsp

  Coriander : a small bunch

  Shallot : 1 medium shallot

  Green jalapeños : 1 tbsp

  Semi-dried tomatoes : 1 tbsp

  Vegetable oil : 1 tbsp

  Using a very sharp knife cut the beef into thin slices, then cut each slice into tiny cubes of meat. Place in a metal bowl and add the 100 per cent agave silver tequila, freshly squeezed lime juice, fish sauce, ground black pepper and Tabasco. Refrigerate for 2 hours.

  Chop the coriander, shallot, green jalapeños and semi-dried tomatoes as fine as you can, keeping them separate.

  Press the marinated meat into a 6 cm chef’s ring or pastry cutter, then turn out to form two tall patties. Place in the freezer for 15 minutes to firm up.

  Heat the oil in a heavy frying pan. When it begins to smoke and is incredibly hot, place the steaks in the pan. Fry for 5 seconds on each side.

  Roll the seared steaks in the chopped coriander and serve with petite heaps of the jalapeño, semi-dried tomato and shallots for seasoning as you eat.

  VENISON

  The culinary call of the wild, venison is the most ancient and widely eaten game meat. Deer have sustained our development from none too civilised cavemen into the modern age. These mighty beasts’ noble bearing, impressive antlers and lusty libido make their meat pure machismo. Venison has a mythic reputation: a testosterone-boosting superfood to power heroic feats of moonlit mating and general manliness.

  The best venison comes from the red deer, monarch of the Scottish glens and emperor of the ancient English forest. Armed with a hip-flask of home-made plum gin, I set out one dewy autumn evening to witness an emperor at work. In darkest Suffolk with only a lanky landowning lord for company I stealthily approached a stag and his harem of ladies. The night was calm, punctuated by the occasional owlish hoot and squawk of roosting pheasants. Then the roaring began. Our emperor let rip with a guttural bellow of pure animal lust. The sound of the rut reverberated through the wooded valley as this king of forest set about his entourage, mounting and mating with impressive stamina.

  Deer mate every autumn with a furious frenzy of pent-up sexuality. This feast of fornication is known as the rut. Every stag’s diary is block-booked for this seminal event. A dominant stag will gather a harem of up to twenty hinds, and defend his mating rights to the death. The nightly bouts of sex and fighting last for about a month. At the end the stag is a shadow of his former self, having lost as much as 20 per cent of his body weight. Understandably, mankind is mightily impressed by this dedicated show of virility. The Lakota tribe of North America revered the elk as a symbol of strength, courage and sexual prowess. Rather less respectful to their fellow creatures, orgy-fatigued Romans sought to acquire the deer’s sexual stamina by eating its penis. Hippocrates, the godfather of modern medicine, was the first to identify deer ding-a-ling as an aphrodisiac, way back in the fourth century BC. An ancient treatment for a timeless concern, it enjoys continued support in modern-day China. To maximise its medicinal properties the Chinese believe that the penis should be e
xtracted from a wild stag while still alive. The uprooted organ is then steeped in alcohol to create the aphrodisiac deer-penis wine. All of which sounds jolly painful for the poor deer.

  Painful and pointless, in fact. To date the active ingredient in deer penis has resolutely eluded nutritional research. Venison, however, provides much the same aphrodisiac goodness as top-quality beef. It boasts a balanced array of libido-boosting amino acids, zinc, iron and B vitamins. A low-fat, high-protein diet has been shown to stimulate testosterone production, and there are few meats as lean or as high in protein as venison. Psychologically there is a frisson about the flesh of an untamed animal. Canines cutting into hunks of venison invoke an ancient heritage, hunters returning victorious from the wilds, meat-filled bellies and primeval fireside tumblings.

  Ethically, nutritionally and gastronomically it is best to pass on penis. The choice cuts of venison are fillet, haunch and liver. The taste and texture of venison is similar to beef but leaner, softer and with a distinct gamey taste. In the kitchen, venison also behaves very much like beef. Joints should be roasted, steaks grilled and liver pan-fried. The strong gamey flavour loves red wine, flourishes with a little bit of redcurrant sweetness and partners perfectly with the aromatic notes of juniper. The surprisingly mild liver is very much a hunter’s treat, rarely reaching the butcher’s counter. If you do come across some, dust in flour seasoned with ground juniper, pan-fry in clarified butter and serve with a reduction of redcurrant and red wine. Roast haunch of red deer is fit for a royal banquet. If your feast is for two, you may have to downsize to roe deer or even the diminutive muntjac. You will still have too much meat but that is the very essence of feasting. Marinate the haunch for twenty-four hours in red wine, bay leaves, rosemary, juniper and garlic; then slow roast until the meat is falling off the bone. Serve as a joint with braised red cabbage, dauphinoise potatoes and green beans. A large glass of claret, a roaring fire, and eyes will soon be glinting with wild desire.

  Slow Roast Haunch of Vension with Braised Red Cabbage

  Venison haunch : small 1 kg joint

  Juniper berries : 1 tbsp

  Garlic : 4 cloves

  Rosemary : 1 large sprig

  Thyme : 1 small sprig

  Bay leaves : 10

  Red wine : ½ bottle

  Butter : 100 g

  Red cabbage : ½ head

  Pears : 2

  Vegetable oil : 1 tbsp

  Redcurrant jelly : 1 tsp

  Salt and pepper : to taste

  Preheat the oven to 150°C.

  Crush the juniper berries, smash the garlic and bruise the rosemary, thyme and bay leaves. Place in a large, lidded roasting pan with the joint of meat on top. Pour the wine over the top and cover. Refrigerate for 12 hours, turning occasionally.

  Cut the butter into thin strips and place in the freezer to harden.

  Remove the joint from the roasting pan, reserving the marinade. Pat dry and make deep incisions into the flesh with a sharp knife. Insert the frozen butter into the incisions.

  Slice the red cabbage into 1 cm strips. Peel and core the pears and cut into 2 cm chunks. Mix the pear and red cabbage with the marinade.

  Heat some oil in a large frying pan and sear the venison joint on all sides. Return to the roasting pan, making a hollow for it among the red cabbage. Cover the joint with a sheet of foil tucked closely against the meat. Cover the roasting pan with another sheet of foil tightly tucked into the edge, then place the lid on top.

  Roast for 3 hours until very tender.

  Unwrap the joint and keep warm. Pour off the liquid from the bottom of the pan. Remove the herbs from the red cabbage, crush the garlic and pear into a paste and mix through the braised cabbage. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

  Skim any fat from the reserved roasting juice and strain into a saucepan. Place over a medium heat and boil until reduced by half to intensify the flavours. Mix through a teaspoon of redcurrant jelly to add sweetness to taste.

  On a warm platter make a bed of the braised cabbage, place the rested venison haunch on top and serve with a gravy boat of sauce. The meat should be so tender that it falls off the bone.

  Vegetables

  ARTICHOKE

  The vegetable in question is the globe artichoke rather than the knobbly, earth-dwelling Jerusalem variety. An important distinction to make as the Jerusalem artichoke is notable principally for an astounding ability to induce flatulence, potent enough to keep it firmly out of any aspiring Romeo’s culinary repertoire. The globe artichoke is a different beast, praised as an aphrodisiac as far back as the misty time of the ancient Greeks.

  The Greeks believed that Zeus transmogrified a former lover into the first artichoke plant. The legend tells of a randy Zeus spying a fair maiden innocently bathing on the shores of the Aegean island Zinari. Inflamed with passion, Zeus promptly ravished the young filly then and there. Cynara, as she was called, turned out to be seriously hot property; so much so that Zeus, besotted with his new playmate, made her into a goddess and installed her in Olympus, close at hand for extracurricular activity whenever his wife had her back turned. Despite its reputation as paradise, Cynara found that life in Olympus was not to her mortal tastes. Homesick, she soon began sneaking back to earth. When Zeus discovered this he assumed the worst. In a jealous rage he flung her out of Olympus and turned her into the spiky but lust-inducing plant we now know as the artichoke. From such sultry beginnings, the artichoke has been renowned for its arousing qualities from ancient times to modern America. In 1949 the Californian artichoke industry crowned a young Marilyn Monroe its first official Artichoke Queen. In sixteenth-century France artichokes were a pleasure reserved for gentlemen only. Their stimulating power was thought too potent for the wives and daughters of the day, who might become uncontrollable under the artichoke’s saucy spell.

  The artichoke plant is a member of the thistle family, the edible part being the flower bud. Integral to the plant’s reproductive system, bulbous and full of pollen, it is easy to see why artichoke heads were first considered aphrodisiacs. Despite the vegetable’s intuitive naughtiness, modern research has drawn something of a blank when trying to substantiate its historic claim to fame. Artichokes have been used extensively throughout history as a digestive aid, and to enhance liver function. Research into this phenomenon in the early twentieth century isolated a compound prevalent in artichokes, which is seriously handy if you have an unhappy liver: cynarin, named after Zeus’s hapless squeeze, not only helps regenerate and protect the liver but also enhances overall liver function. This is all well and good and not terribly groundbreaking until you link it with more research indicating that a healthy liver is instrumental to maintaining a lusty sex drive.

  One function of the liver is to regulate the manufacture of proteins. And one such protein is the wonderfully named globulin, which is needed to produce the hormone testosterone. Testosterone has a direct and decidedly enlivening effect on the libido, particularly in women. So it seems that our sixteenth-century French gents had good reason to restrict their women’s artichoke intake. No self-respecting bourgeois monsieur wants sexual revolution. In fact, history’s most legendary artichoke muncher, the famously man-eating Queen of France, Catherine de Medici, may have been such a virago precisely because her heroic consumption of artichokes induced an excess of testosterone.

  Aside from their nutritional properties, artichokes make for some seriously sexy eating. Traditionally they are either steamed or boiled in a court bouillon, then served with melted butter, hollandaise or Béarnaise sauce. The leaves are plucked off one by one; each leaf base is then dipped in the sauce, popped in the mouth and the flesh scraped off with one’s gnashers. Once the leaves are exhausted one needs some surgical skill to cut away the eponymous ‘choke’, which is the bristly unformed flower. Once this operation is complete, all that remains is to luxuriate in the most prized part of the artichoke, its delicious heart. This vegetable is far too sophisticated to give up its all on the first bite.
First it coquettishly teases you with its leaves, giving up its pleasures morsel by morsel. Once stripped to its heart, resistance is over. Smear it with the remaining sauce and your mouth is rewarded with a sensory explosion of one of gastronomy’s most unique and intense flavours.

  Boiled Artichokes with Béarnaise Sauce

  Large globe artichokes : 2

  Lemon : 1

  Bay leaves : 2

  Black peppercorns : 4

  Choose your artichokes carefully. They are generally best in summer. Select firm, heavy specimens with stiff, tightly furled leaves, which will vary in colour from green to violet depending on variety. Beware artichokes with black-tipped leaves; these not only look a bit sinister but, more practically, will have been picked some time previously. Remove the outer leaves of each artichoke, leaving the top two thirds in place. Break off the stalk, taking care to remove the stringy veins that come away with it – for this reason do not cut the stalk off with a knife. Wash under cold water and secure each artichoke’s remaining leaves with a rubber band, so they will retain their shape while cooking.

  Bring a large pan of water to the boil, add the juice of one lemon, the bay leaves and black peppercorns. Plunge your trussed artichokes into the water and boil vigorously for around 30 minutes.

  The artichokes are ready when the remaining outer leaves come away with a firm downwards tug. Remove the rubber bands, drain for a few minutes in a colander and serve with warm béarnaise sauce.

  BÉARNAISE SAUCE

  Chopped chervil : 3 tbsp

  Chopped tarragon : 3 tbsp

  White wine vinegar : 75 ml

  Chopped shallots : 20 g

  Thyme : 1 small sprig

  Bay leaf : 1

  Black peppercorns : 3

  Eggs : 2

  Butter : 125 g