High prize indeed
Marinated lamb's loin on thyme and pancetta mash with a timbale of sweetbreads, wild mushrooms and borlotti beans, red onion marmalade, market vegetables, port-infused jus
INGREDIENTS
250g trimmed lamb loin
For the marinade
25g thyme
25g garlic
150ml olive oil
4 crushed juniper berries
For the mirepoix
30g onion
30g carrot
10g diced bacon rind
5ml olive oil
20ml tomato purée
Mushroom trimmings
4 crushed peppercorns
150ml port
450ml lamb stock
175g lamb's sweetbreads
8 shallots, diced
150g mixed wild mushrooms, diced
55g pre-soaked borlotti beans
70g butter
1 measure Madeira
170g bread (thin slices)
450g potatoes
80g pancetta, diced
150ml cream
2 coarsely chopped courgettes
8 pieces of turned turnip
16 pieces of squash
Salt and pepper
1tsp picked thyme
225g red onion, finely sliced
30ml honey
300ml red wine
15ml sherry vinegar
Oil
METHOD
Bone and trim the lamb loin. Mix the marinade ingredients and pour over the lamb. Refrigerate.
In a hot pan, roast the lamb trimmings and the mirepoix, deglaze with the port and add the lamb stock. Simmer for 40 minutes and pass through muslin.
Blanch the lamb sweetbreads in salted water and refresh. Clean away the skin and break into small nuggets.
In a pan, sweat the shallots in 50g of butter with the mushrooms and beans. Deglaze with Madeira, add 200ml of the new lamb stock and cook out. Line four buttered dariole moulds with bread and fill with the sweetbread mix.
Boil the potatoes. Drain, put through a ricer. Fry the pancetta, add potato and cream. Season and keep warm.
Blanch the vegetables, brush with oil, put them in a pan with thyme and roast for 15-20 minutes.
Put the red onion in a pan with honey, red wine and sherry vinegar and cook till all the liquid has been absorbed.
Heat a sauté pan and seal the lamb in a little hot oil. Roast until pink, rest and keep warm.
To assemble, turn out the dariole, pipe the pancetta mash beside it. Carve the lamb and rest just off the mash, add a spoonful of marmalade, garnish with vegetables, sauce and serve.
KEVIN MacGillivray is a relieved man. Having missed out on the Scottish Chef of the Year title on two previous occasions, the Perthshire head chef is now basking in the glory of his recent success, which won him a cash prize of £2,500, a Cookery & Food Association gold medal and the 1999-2000 trophy.
"I was in two minds about entering the competition because of the disappointment I had endured previously," he reflects. "But it was great to win." The head chef at the privately owned Ballathie House hotel in Stanley had reached the final on both previous occasions. "I was close last time but the sweet let me down," he says. "I took the easy option at the 1997 final and presented a simple sweet (a warm berry compôte with a lemon balm parfait), but this time I went for more finesse and artistry."
This year's chilled mango delice with crisp biscuit, kumquat confit and warm wild strawberries in vanilla syrup found favour with the judges, but it was MacGillivray's starter and main dish that stood out. "All the flavours just came together," says MacGillivray of his starter, rosemary stalk-skewered quail breast coated in honey and black and white sesame seeds on an artichoke and summer truffle risotto.
Inspiration for the dish came from Luxembourg, where MacGillivray competed as part of the Scottish Culinary Olympic Team. "I had seen a competitor doing something similar and when I was deciding which dishes to enter, it just popped into my head," he says.
MacGillivray says simplicity was the key to his main course - chargrilled marinated loin of lamb served on thyme and pancetta mash with a timbale of sweetbreads, wild mushrooms and borlotti beans, red onion marmalade, market vegetables and a port-infused jus.
"I felt people would be wrapping, rolling and stuffing, but I had a hunch to leave the meat relatively untouched," says MacGillivray.
Chairman of the judges George McIvor, executive chef for Baxters of Speyside, described the dish as "perfection on a plate". Together with four other judges, McIvor was charged with picking a winner from eight chefs who had three-and-a-half hours to cook a four-course meal for four covers.
The produce was chosen very carefully. "I concentrated on getting the balance of the dishes right and gave them a Scottish emphasis by using native produce," explains MacGillivray. A good supply of local lamb, for example, made it a natural choice. He is also a big fan of chanterelle mushrooms that grow on the hotel's estate.
The shellfish for the second course - langoustine broth with water chestnuts, leeks and smoked queen scallops - came from the Isle of Skye. "It's out of the water and here the next day," says MacGillivray.
The island is also a source of farmed salmon that MacGillivray can fall back on when wild salmon is unavailable, although having the River Tay running through the grounds of the hotel gives him better access than most to the wild variety. One of the most popular starters on the lunch menu is home-cured salmon served with pickled cucumber and mustard cream, an idea borrowed from Marco Pierre White. The salmon is cured on site every two to three weeks.
Game such as pheasants, pigeons and rabbits is shot on the estate. "We serve a lot of game dishes," says MacGillivray. "Rabbit is nice but the saddle can be dry, so we wrap it in Savoy cabbage and cured ham and serve it on a wild mushroom risotto."
Sunday lunch is a popular affair at Ballathie, something MacGillivray has worked to establish since joining the hotel six years ago. Business now stands at about 50-60 covers. "I took the price down until trade was established and then gradually moved it up." For £18.50, customers get a three-course meal with five choices including Aberdeen Angus beef, salmon and chicken.
The dinner menu, with five choices at each course, changes daily and is priced at £29.50 for three courses and £33 for four. An average of 40-60 covers are served on weekday evenings with Saturday night seeing the 70-seat restaurant full with customers comprising 45 residents and 25 outside bookings.
He is reluctant to give his cuisine a particular label. "I try not to make it too Scottish," he says. "I can't make it too Oriental or Asian either because it just wouldn't sell here, although I can incorporate some of those ingredients." Lemongrass is one such ingredient and MacGillivray has teamed it with salmon. It is used to skewer the fish which is then chargrilled, and served with chargrilled fennel and roasted cherry tomatoes.
His involvement with the Scottish Culinary Olympic Team, which spans 10 years, is a constant source of ideas. "I get to pick the brains of the other team members," he says. He first joined the team in 1988 when it competed in Frankfurt, then rejoined five years ago and has since taken part in the Culinary Olympics in Singapore and Luxembourg.
Work with the team at the moment is geared towards the next Culinary Olympics and MacGillivray and fellow team members will also be competing at La Parade des Chefs at Hotelympia 2000.
MacGillivray's employers are very proud of his competition successes, which have included the Scotch Beef and Lamb Association's Taste of Scotland Scottish Lamb Challenge and the Macallan Taste of Scotland 1997 award for Best Lunch in Scotland.
Since deciding to become a chef at the age of 11, MacGillivray has drawn on different influences throughout his career. The most influential point, according to MacGillivray, was five years at Gleddoch House Hotel at Langbank with Charles Price, first as chef de partie and later sous chef.
His first head chef position came in 1989 at Chapeltoun House in Ayrshire, a small country house hotel with a brigade of five. He considers it a good starting point to try to do his own thing. "I used everything I had picked up and put my own stamp on it," he says.
While MacGillivray applauds the likes of White and Gordon Ramsay, he is not concerned with chasing accolades himself. "It's nice to be recognised for what you do," he says. "Three rosettes would be nice but there is always the chance you could lose one. I would rather stay at two and be a good two." n
