A few years ago, I confessed on these pages that I didn't really do Valentine's Day. Fast-forward six years and I'm still a long way from putting on my best shirt and sitting opposite my loved one in a candlelit restaurant rammed with tables for two, but I'm now happy to celebrate food and love, and the links they share. The most insightful of these come, as so often, from the American writer MFK Fisher. In her essay Love In A Dish, she stresses how important it is that a couple eats together, specifically in the intimacy of the home, and cites the great French author Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin: "He wrote many paragraphs and pages on the importance of gastronomy in love," she writes, "and… proved the point, put bluntly, that happiness at table leads to happiness in bed." Fisher agrees that "there can be no warm, rich home life anywhere else if it does not exist at table, and in the same way there can be no enduring family happiness, no real marriage, if a man and woman cannot open themselves generously and without suspicion one to the other over a shared bowl of soup as well as a shared caress." So, just this once, happy Valentine's Day.

Smoked haddock and oyster quiches

These keep well, so even if you're cooking them for two next Friday, it's worth making the full batch. These quantities serve six as a starter, alongside a sharp green salad.

½ small sweet potato, peeled and cut into 2cm dice
2 tbsp olive oil
Salt and black pepper
1 tsp maple syrup
1 small leek, outer leaves removed, the white thinly sliced on an angle
150ml whole milk
140g piece haddock fillet, skinless and boneless
1 tsp black peppercorns
2 bay leaves
250g puff pastry
Flour, for dusting
1 egg
120ml double cream
1 tsp mustard powder
Finely grated zest of ½ lemon
10g tarragon leaves, chopped
85g tin smoked oysters, drained and each oyster cut in half

Heat the oven to 200C/390F/gas mark 6. In a bowl, mix the sweet potato with a tablespoon of oil, a quarter-teaspoon of salt and a little black pepper. Tip on to a small baking tray and roast for 20-25 minutes, until cooked and starting to brown. Tip back into the bowl, add the maple syrup, mash roughly and set aside.

Heat the remaining oil in a medium sauté pan on a medium flame. Add the leek, an eighth of a teaspoon of salt and a little black pepper, fry for four minutes, stirring, until cooked, then tip into a bowl.

Give the sauté pan a wipe, then add the milk, haddock, peppercorns and bay leaves. Bring to a simmer, cover and cook for four minutes, until thefish flakes when touched. Remove from the heat, set aside to cool, then lift out the fish with a slotted spoon and break into a bowl, in roughly 2cm pieces. Cover and refrigerate; discard the milk and aromatics.

Turn down the oven to 180C/350F/gas mark 4. On a lightly floured surface, roll out the pasty to 2mm thick, then cut into circles to fit six 8cm-diameter, crinkle-edged tart cases with removable bases. Press the pastry into the moulds, trim the edges and prick all over with a fork. Place baking paper discs in each and fill with baking beans. Transfer to a baking tray, rest in the fridge for 10 minutes, then bake for half an hour. Remove the paper and beans, bake for 10 minutes more, until turning golden brown, then set aside to cool.

While the tart shells are cooking, put the egg, cream, mustard, lemon zest and chopped tarragon in a bowl with an eighth of a teaspoon of salt and a grind of black pepper. Whisk to combine, then pour into a small jug.

Spoon a 3mm-thick layer of sweet potato mash into each tart base. Dot the oyster halves on top, followed by the haddock and leek: you want to be able to see everything. Divide the cream between the tarts, then bake on the top shelf of the oven for 20 minutes, until set. Leave to rest for five minutes, then serve.

Confit duck wraps with pomegranate jam

Again, if making this for two, keep the quantities as they are, because the duck will keep in the fridge for up to a month, as long as it's covered in fat (save the fat: it makes the best roast potatoes). Iceberg leaves can replace the tortillas. Start a day ahead, to marinate the duck. Serves four.

4 duck legs
60g coarse sea salt, plus ¾ tsp extra
10g thyme sprigs
4 bay leaves
600g goose fat
1 tsp honey
The seeds from 1 large pomegranate
2 tbsp lemon juice
2 tbsp pomegranate molasses
2 tsp caster sugar
½ tsp chilli flakes
240g tin butterbeans, drained
White pepper
12 corn tortillas (18-19cm in diameter, ideally), slightly warmed
1 stick celery, julienned
½ small cucumber, julienned
½ red onion, peeled and sliced thin
20g coriander, roughly chopped

Put the duck legs in a medium bowl with the 60g of salt, half the thyme and half the bay leaves. Mix, cover and leave in the fridge overnight.

Heat the oven to 150C/300F/gas mark 2. Rinse the salt off the duck, pat dry and set aside. Put on a high heat a 22cm, heavy-based oven dish for which you have a lid. Add goose fat and remaining thyme and bay, and cook for two minutes, until the fat melts. Submerge the duck in the fat, bring to a simmer, cover and roast for three hours, until golden-brown and falling off the bone. Remove and, once cool enough to handle, scrape off and save the fat (set aside two tablespoons for later), and place duck skin side up on a small baking tray. Sprinkle on a quarter-teaspoon of salt, drizzle over the honey and roast again, this time for 30-40 minutes, until the skin crisps up a little. Shred the meat and skin from the bone, and set aside.

While the duck is cooking, put the pomegranate seeds in a small pan with the lemon juice, molasses, sugar, chilli and 80ml water. Bring to a boil, then simmer for 20-25 minutes, stirring from time to time: it should go the consistency of runny jam, so add water if need be. Set aside.

Put the butterbeans in a saucepan with two tablespoons of goose fat, half a teaspoon of salt, some white pepper and 70ml water. Heat gently for three minutes, then roughly mash the butterbeans to a paste. Remove from the heat and set aside.

To serve, spread a tablespoon of butterbean mash over each wrap, leaving a 1cm border, and lay two tablespoons of warm meat down the centre. Top with celery, cucumber, onion and coriander, finish with a drizzle of the jam and leave your guest/s to wrap their own.

Rice pudding with roast rhubarb and tarragon

Sweet, comforting rice pudding, savoury tarragon and bay leaves: like all good relationships, this is not too sweet and not too bitter. Serves six.

100g pudding rice
700ml full fat milk
Shaved skin of ½ medium orange
1 large cinnamon stick
100ml double cream
30g icing sugar
100g Greek yoghurt
530g rhubarb, cut into 5cm pieces
50g caster sugar
10 sprigs tarragon, five on the sprig, the rest picked and chopped
6 fresh bay leaves, torn in half
1 vanilla pod, cut in half lengthways and seeds scraped out

Heat the oven to 150C/300F/gas mark 2. Put the rice, milk, orange skin and cinnamon in a high-sided 20cm x 30cm baking tray. Bake for 70 minutes, stirring after 20 minutes, until the rice has absorbed most of the milk and is cooked through but still holds its shape. Leave to cool, then scrape off and discard the skin (I eat it!); fish out and discard the orange skin and cinnamon. Transfer to a bowl, cover and refrigerate.

Put the cream and icing sugar in a medium bowl, and whisk until the cream thickens and holds its shape. Fold into the rice, then fold in the yoghurt and return to the fridge.

Turn up the oven to 230C/450F/gas mark 8. Toss the rhubarb in a high-sided 20cm x 30cm baking tray with the sugar, tarragon sprigs, bay leaves, vanilla pod and seeds. Roast for 15-20 minutes, until the rhubarb is soft. Set aside to cool, then discard the herbs; save the vanilla pod, which can be dried and reused.

Divide the rice pudding between six bowls, top with a generous spoonful of rhubarb and finish with a sprinkling of chopped tarragon

• Yotam Ottolenghi is chef/patron of Ottolenghi and Nopi, both in London.

Follow Yotam on Twitter.