Whether it’s a party for two or a family get-together, “minimalist” entertaining is a thing these days, where quality time with the company you keep, is more important than the frills and the show. Let me tell you, that’s good news to me because I’m a minimalist guy.
This Valentine’s, if you want to have dinner at home with your partner, you don’t have to bake a souffle to impress with the dessert. It’s the thought that counts, and the more clever the thought, the smarter it looks! How about coffee gelatin hearts? Cute? Easy? And here’s a bonus—they taste so good!
Make the coffee gelatin—use a recipe like the one from Zojirushi. It’s made with instant coffee, so if you have a water boiler, press the button to REBOIL and in a few minutes you’ll have boiling water ready to use. I always have mine set to 195°F for tea anyway, so getting it to reach boiling doesn’t take long at all—much faster than boiling cold water.
Make the condensed milk gelatin—use condensed milk straight out of the can and thin with hot water before adding the gelatin. I used 2 packets of gelatin each for both my milk and coffee to make sure it got firm enough to mold and release. I also coated the mold very sparingly with oil too.
Refrigerate for a few hours and pop them out.
The Japanese way to serve coffee gelatin is to pour cream on it; this is so good I would definitely recommend this. The cream balances the bitterness of the coffee, and the act of doing this extra ritual makes it kind of special.
BTW, did you know White Day is coming up on March 14th? If you lived in Japan, you’d see the men reciprocating gifts to the girls on this day, because on Valentine’s the gift giving is typically one-way only (girls > men) in Japan. On White Day the roles are reversed. What a way for the candy companies to take advantage of two days, eh?
Let’s have a gyoza party! This year Valentine’s falls on a weekday, so if you don’t want to hassle with cooking after work but you still want to entertain at home, why not fry up some store-bought frozen pot stickers and call your friends? Who cares if it comes out of a bag—these days they all taste delicious if you cook them right. You may notice that these ones are pretty large; that’s because they’re Korean style pot stickers known as mandu. It’s a different experience from the Japanese gyoza, but trust me, you’ll like them too.
After you brown them lightly on one side with some oil, pour about half-cup of water in the pan and cover it. This will steam cook the frozen gyoza.
When you notice most of the water has evaporated, lift the cover and continue cooking until they look brown and delicious.
Minimalist Pot Sticker party! All you need is white rice, soy sauce for dipping and chili oil (get this in bottles at a nearby Asian market); you cannot eat gyoza without chili oil. It’s the reason you can add a flavor bomb to plain white rice. Are we starting to understand how this all works?
And lastly, for something maybe not so minimal but still nevertheless EASY, don’t spend your money going out to Benihana® when you can have teppanyaki at home. As long as you don’t need to see food being tossed around, you should be good! All you need is to buy the ingredients and as expected the meats are the only real expense.
This spread costs around $50-$60 and feeds around 4 with healthy appetites. The brisket and veggies can be dipped in ponzu sauce, while the sliced beef and pork came marinated from the market. We already had the shrimp in the freezer, which was seasoned in garlic lemon sauce.
Time to dig in! Everybody is in charge of replacing the food as it cooks, and everyone must help eat before it gets burnt. I don’t think you’ll get many complaints there. If you’re a drinker by the way, this goes very well with beer.
If you’re really hungry, one way to wrap up the meal is with one of my favorites, yaki onigiri (grilled rice balls). I don’t really eat yaki onigiri at the same time as teppanyaki because rice just makes me full and I can’t eat all the other good stuff. But it’s a convenient treat because you already have the griddle out, so why not? Zojirushi has their own recipe here for reference.
So Happy Valentine’s and saving some money this year by being minimalist, but not cheap.
Products used in this post: Panorama Window® Micom Water Boiler & Warmer CD-LFC30/40/50, Gourmet Sizzler®Electric Griddle EA-DCC10, Gourmet d’Expert® Electric Skillet EP-RAC50
Please note that these recipes were not tested by Zojirushi America.
All images by Bert Tanimoto ©2025
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