Food & Drink
Introducing The Lookout on Calton Hill, plus Rose Murray Brown on port
I’ve spent the last few weeks developing dishes at our new kitchen at The Lookout on Calton Hill. It’s an open kitchen and I love the energy and atmosphere created when our guests can get a glimpse of the dishes before they are served.
Two of my favourite new dishes are made using halibut and rabbit. The halibut is farmed on the beautiful Scottish island of Gigha in a sustainable, non-intensive way with water taken from the sea, then returned filtered and cleaned. This ensures none of the wild fish or the local waters are disturbed by the farming of the fish. We champion Gigha halibut in both our restaurants as we believe sustainable fish is a must.
Not many of us cook with rabbit at home, but they are readily available at farmers’ markets and good butchers. We get our rabbits from an estate in the Tweed Valley. We have a great relationship with the gamekeeper and get them straight from the shoot, still in their jackets, and process them at our in-house butchery in Leith. If you don’t fancy a bit of home butchery, you can always ask your butcher to prepare them to oven ready stage.
Rabbit yakitori
Ask your butcher for the whole rabbit, including the offal. And keep the legs to braise for a great light lunch. You will also need wooden skewers, pre-soaked for 30 minutes. This dish is best cooked on a barbecue. You can pan-fry, but be careful not to over-cook as it can dry out quickly. We use malt extract as the glaze, more commonly used to make beer. It’s readily available online, or at your local brewers shop.
Feeds two as a nibble or starter
1 oven-ready rabbit saddle 4 rabbit kidneys 2 rabbit livers 100g malt extract 1 spring onion, thinly sliced
1 Dice the rabbit loin into thumb sized chunks.
2 Clean any fatty membrane from the liver and kidneys.
3 Marinate the rabbit meat and offal in the malt extract for a minimum of 2 hours. You may need to thin it with a few tablespoons of hot water if it’s too thick.
4 Once marinated, skewer the meat and cook on a barbecue for about 3 minutes each side and serve garnished with spring onion.
Gigha halibut, clams, seaweed and artichoke
I love wild fish, but also believe in using sustainably-sourced produce, and Gigha halibut is in my opinion, among the best-tasting fish available. Ask your local fishmonger if they can source it for you, or alternatively, you
can get it online at The Fish Society.
Serves two
2 340g Gigha halibut fillet steaks 10 surf clams 2 shallots, sliced 100g fresh seaweed 1 leek, diced 165ml cider 100ml double cream 1 artichoke heart, halved fine herbs to garnish – we use sweet cicely but tarragon or dill will work a treat
1 Heat the oven to 150C/gas Mark 2 2 Clean the clams. 3 Place the fish fillets in a casserole dish on top of the seaweed, leeks and shallots.
Add the cream, cider and clams, and cover with clingfilm. Bake in the oven for 10 minutes. Meanwhile, heat a skillet and place the artichoke cut-side down and cook until charred.
Remove the casserole dish from the oven and serve the contents in warmed bowls, garnished with a few fine herbs.
Heather honey madeleines
You will need a madeleine mould for these little cakes. I allow six per person. You should serve them hot, straight from the oven.
Makes around 20
185g butter 375g icing sugar
55g plain flour 75g ground almonds 6 egg whites 1 tbsp heather honey 1 Heat the oven to 190C/gas Mark 5 2 Butter and flour the madeleine moulds.
3 Heat the butter over a moderatehigh heat until brown and nutty, then transfer to a bowl.
4 Sift together sugar and flour, then stir in the ground almonds.
5 Whisk the egg whites in your mixer until frothy, then add dry ingredients and whisk until combined.
6 Whisk in the butter and honey, then spoon into moulds, filling almost to the top.
7 Bake in the oven for 12 to 15 minutes.