Seasons on Harris

by David Yeadon

  When we first visited Harris almost twenty years ago, the scene was even more frugal and the only place that seemed to generate any attention and accolades was Alison and Andrew Johnson’s Scarista House. I believe, in those days, they offered only three rooms, and although it was a little expensive, I remember Anne and I managed to scrabble together sufficient splurge funds for a two-night stay. At that time Alison was still writing her intriguing book describing how she and Andrew, virtually by themselves, had taken this run-down old minister’s “manse,” set high on the moor overlooking the magnificent sweep of Scarista Bay halfway down the west coast, and transformed it from a “chicken shit–filled wreck” into one of the most celebrated guesthouses in the Western Isles.

  Alison’s popular book A House by the Shore put not only Scarista House but Harris itself on the hidden-gem-hunters’ shortlists. “I was very surprised at first by all the attention,” Alison told us later with beguiling modesty. “It was a pretty ordinary story of how two neophytes like us with no knowledge of building construction or hotel management almost bankrupted and bludgeoned ourselves into oblivion.”

  When Anne and I first stayed there, work was still in progress, but all we remember were cozy, comfortable bedrooms, glasses of sherry in the evening by the peat fire in the library, and superb multicourse dinners concocted by Alison from the best and freshest of island produce and served in an intimate, candlelit dining room overlooking the bay and hazy Taransay Island. Her soups, including a classic cullen skink (a silky melding of smoked haddock, onions, potato, and cream), and her entrée of lobsters in a cognac, lemon, and tarragon sauce, were five-star marvels. And indeed, in subsequent years, Scarista House received a welter of awards from just about every guidebook and travel magazine around.

  Eventually the weary couple moved on to other adventures in Harris, but today the current owners, Tim and Patricia Martin, have kept the standards high and even added a couple of additional rooms and self-catering cottages. One would have thought that Scarista House might have spawned a host of eager imitators ready to capitalize on Harris’s increasing popularity. But strangely, with the exception of the elite “hunting party” accommodations and gourmet fare at Amhuinnsuidhe Castle on the road to Huishnish, there are still only two other similar guesthouses: Leachin House, on the outskirts of Tarbert, which has attracted a loyal following, and the MacAskill family’s Ardhasaig House, just down the hill below our cottage, which has in three short years become a focus for Katie MacAskill’s remarkable culinary triumphs. Guidebooks gush and stars galore adorn hotel and restaurant reviews that celebrate this “white-painted hundred-year-old croft with a beautiful situation at the head of a sea loch on the western side of the island.” One reviewer ecstatically recalled: “a superb dinner comprised of carrot and red onion soup with ginger and garlic; Parma ham and fruits; local trout with lemon and almond butter; Cloutie dumpling with crème Anglaise and coulis.” The reviewer was also enamored of “excellent breakfasts with abundant choices including porridge, venison sausages, sauted lamb’s kidneys, black and white pudding and oat cakes.”

  Amhuinnsuidhe Castle

  Diminutive Katie, thirty-five years old, and Roddy and Joan’s second-youngest daughter, blushes a little at all the attention but told me that “it’s what I’ve always wanted to do. I also wanted to live here on-island and not go to the mainland like so many of our youngsters have to do nowadays. I had to leave for a while to get my diploma at the Edinburgh Food and Wine Institute and then learn the ropes in a large turnover kitchen. I chose the Glasgow Hilton and worked with James Murphy, the executive chef. And then I worked with Andrew Fairlie before he became one of Scotland’s most famous chefs. And I mean worked! You really have to focus in places like that and be very organized. When you’re serving over two hundred dinners a night you’ve got to produce or you very quickly end up ‘in the weeds’! Here in my little guesthouse the numbers are obviously far less—one seating for twenty is about our maximum—but then, there’s only me and sometimes two staff for prep and serving, so I’m running the whole show from the little ‘amusées’ I always serve before the four-course dinner, to the petits fours with the coffee after dessert. Oh, and I help Dad and Mum with the shop too!”

  And indeed she does. Many times in the early-afternoon gap between serving breakfast and prepping dinner, I chatted with her at the shop across the road from our cottage while trying to find inspiration for one of my own “improv” dinners for Anne and me.

  “You love cooking, don’t you?” she once said.

  “I guess I always have,” I admitted. “Ever since my mother and father—they ran a shop too, you know, in Yorkshire—let me fend for myself when it came to meals during the day. I think I was the first person ever to cook rice in our house. And when I started carting in bottles of oyster sauce, Indian mango pickle, Thai curry pastes, and all kinds of other exotic stuff, my mother thought I’d gone a bit bonkers, but she always kept popping into the kitchen from the shop for a taste and a nibble.”

  Katie smiled. “That’s a great way to get started. Just experimenting and tasting…”

  “It was the only way to keep myself interested. If I knew exactly what a dish would taste like because of a recipe or the fact I’d done it a dozen times before—I’d lose patience. I needed to surprise myself—just like going into a restaurant and not knowing exactly what you’ll be served. I loved that anticipation. I loved to learn new ways of blending flavors—inventing entirely new dishes. Fusion cooking, I guess, although fusion’s got a bad name nowadays. Too many chefs using too many ingredients all at once. I still believe in keeping things relatively simple—clean, clear flavors—but also a little unpredictable. I love it when someone says, “Wow! That’s a great sauce! What’s in it?” My only problem is I don’t usually keep notes, so I have a helluva job trying to tell them.”

  Katie smiled, nodded, and then said exactly what I’d been hoping for: “Well, maybe you’d like to pop down to my kitchen one night when I’m doing din—”

  I didn’t hesitate for a second. “How about tonight?”

  Katie laughed and her pretty dimpled face turned pink. “I…all right, then…tonight. I’ve got about ten in and it won’t be too crazy…no, tonight’s just fine.”

  So, at 6:00 P.M., there I was, strolling down the field from our cottage to the guesthouse. (“Actually it’s a small hotel now,” Katie told me. “We’ve just added a sixth room, so I’ve been upgraded!”)

  Her “small hotel” is immaculate. Roddy supervised its extensive renovation and expansion from a dilapidated crofter’s cottage to the little gem of today, complete with cozy lounge and bar overlooking Loch Bunavoneadar and the North Harris hills, and an outdoor patio for summer evening gatherings if the midges aren’t biting.

  Katie’s kitchen is something out of a “how to design a perfect restaurant” handbook. It is spacious, well lit, airy, and abundantly equipped with stainless steel ovens, warmers, prep counters, serving counter, and huge sinks at either end of a stove with eight high-velocity gas burners. This is a truly serious hotbed of culinary creativity, and Katie is a truly serious chef. Fortunately, her approach is tempered by disarming smiles, occasional fits of giggles, and an inbred intuition on pacing and mood—all vital ingredients of a good kitchen. She is constantly asking Catriona, her assistant and server, about her guests: “Are they enjoying it?” “Are they happy?” “Do they need a bit of a break?” “Are they still hungry—should I do a few extra veggies?”

  This is a place where the guests, and not the kitchen regimens and protocols, definitely come first. She tries to discover their likes and dislikes and designs the nightly menu accordingly, along with a few gastronomic surprise “gifts,” such as hors d’oeuvres or homemade petits fours that may reflect items guests had previously complimented during their stays. And she is the recipient of many compliments. You can hear the “oohs” and “ahs” as dishes sally forth from the kitchen into the adjoining intimate dining room. Little comes
back. Most plates are scoured clean, which in itself is one of the best compliments a chef can receive.

  Occasionally, at the end of the meal, a guest will ask to speak to Katie personally in the kitchen. The evening I was there an elderly gentleman smartly dressed in tweed jacket and striped silk tie and speaking in a slow American drawl entered and stood, eyes sparkling with delight, by the serving counter.

  “Miss Katie,” he began, with a beguiling smile, “I’d just like to say that this is the first time my wife and I have ever visited your restaurant. And although we’ve been coming to the Highlands for many years and dined just about everywhere worth dining, this has been—without any shadow of a doubt—one of the finest meals we have ever had. By far, young lady, by far. From your first little crostini with the pâté we knew it was going to be real special. And real special it was. We ate everything—every drop of sauce—everything. And we just wanted to say thank you—truly thank you—for an experience we shall never forget.”

  Katie, standing demurely by the stove with her little chef’s hat on and crisp whites, blushed (Katie blushes quite a lot), grinned, and said how pleased she was that everything had gone so well. I sensed she was not unused to such praise, but she accepted the man’s thanks with beguilingly modest grace.

  “You’ll go far, Miss Katie,” the American guest said as he turned to go. “We’ll be hearing a lot about you and your cooking—of that I’m real sure.”

  And then he was gone, leaving Katie still blushing as she quickly turned her back and busied herself at the sink. Catriona said, “Oh, Katie—wasn’t that so nice of him?”

  “Och! It was only a regular dinner,” she said softly, but then she turned and I knew that compliments of that kind touched her and made her work here richly rewarding.

  And what did her “regular dinner” of that evening consist of? Well, when I arrived three dishes were already slowly maturing on the stove. Two were soups—a carrot and parsnip blend and a cream of fennel—and a wild mushroom medley risotto.

  “Help yourself to a spoon and test,” Katie said. “I’m still open to suggestions.”

  In the case of the two soups I could think of nothing that would enhance the silky-creamed purity of their texture and flavor. They tasted just as the menu described them—no tricks, gimmicks, or muddied mélange of ingredients. The distinctiveness of the selected vegetable flavor was the whole point of these creations.

  As for the risotto, it was still at the very al dente stage but the flavors of the four different types of mushrooms Katie had used were permeating wonderfully. “Maybe it just needs some more…”

  “…stock,” said Katie, and poured in a couple of cups of her made-fresh-daily chicken stock. “And wine…,” and in went a generous swirl of an elegant New Zealand chardonnay. “Anything else?”

  “Well, it’s got a way to go yet…,” I said hesitantly. Cooks may invite suggestions but not necessarily always welcome them, so I was a little cautious in my comments. “But I remember in southern Italy some of the mammas would add a handful of grated parmesan during the cooking. Some sprinkled it on just before serving.”

  Katie laughed and lifted a cloth partially covering a chopping board to reveal a heaping mound of freshly grated parmesan. “I do both,” she said. “Some goes in while it’s still cooking, and some at the end as a garnish!”

  The guests were assembling in the dining room and Catriona hurried to prepare the little plates of golden oven-baked crostini piled high with homemade game pâté and each topped with a single red currant. I got to test one—actually four—and off they went along with iced water in glass jugs filled with slices of orange, lemon, lime, and strawberry. (A real Martha Stewart touch—why hadn’t I ever thought of that?)

  Five minutes later the soups went out, garnished with hot toasted almonds and accompanied by baskets of dainty puffballs of kitchen-baked bread scattered with blackened sesame seeds. Then Katie began to finalize her “dressed salad leaves with scallops, monkfish, and chili jam.” Her dressing couldn’t have been simpler—virgin olive oil, fresh-squeezed lemon juice, and pepper, hand tossed with the multicolored leaves.

  “I wondered about shaving a few wee slices of cucumber in the salad…,” Katie mused.

  “Oh, I wouldn’t if I were you,” I said before I knew I’d said anything.

  “Oh—and why is that now?”

  “Well—you remember what the great Dr. Samuel Johnson wrote about cucumbers…?”

  “No, I don’t…”

  “‘A cucumber should be well sliced, and dressed with pepper and vinegar—and then thrown out as good for nothing.’”

  “Well, now,” said Katie. “And isn’t he the one who also said oatmeal was only fit for pigs and Scottish peasants?”

  “I don’t think he put it quite so rudely…”

  “Well, I’m sure it wasn’t far off. He didn’t like us at all!”

  I couldn’t really argue with that except to say, “Well—he was much more complimentary when he traveled here with his Scottish companion, Boswell.”

  “Poof!” scoffed Katie.

  I wished I’d never brought up the subject of that irascible old tyrant.

  Next came the sea scallops and monkfish doused with a little chili jam—seared golden on one side in olive oil and French Celle sur Belle butter, then poached more slowly on the other side, the whole task taking less than two minutes. Katie offered me a spare scallop. The combination of golden-crusted topside with the chili jam on the softer side tantalized my palate—until it suddenly dissolved in a gush of gorgeous seafood with a texture almost like that of a cream custard.

  Katie smiled at my delight. “All my scallops are hand dived. A guy down in Strond scubas down for them every week—sometimes twice a week in the height of summer. It’s a tricky business, though. One diver recently had a bad attack of the bends. Came up too fast or something. They say it almost killed him. Couldn’t go down again for weeks.”

  I was still absorbing the scallop “custard,” so an empathetic nod was all I could manage.

  “Okay—entrée time. Three different choices. We’ve got about twenty minutes.”

  And what a twenty minutes that turned out to be. Katie and Catriona worked together like automatons. I offered to help but was told that my role remained that of tester, which was just fine by me because first came her sauce for the initial entrée—halibut. This was a mix of melted sautéed leek strips flambéed in white vermouth, rapidly reduced, and then melded with fresh lemon juice, double cream, and seasoning and poured around a gently poached fillet of snow-white halibut garnished with spoonfuls of “caviar” made from Scottish herring roe.

  Then came a bronze-skinned guinea fowl baked for twenty minutes or so in her huge, blazing-hot oven and served on beds of sliced fennel and peaches in a rapidly reduced sauce of flamed tawny port, chicken stock, and fresh red currants.

  Katie MacAskill at the Stove

  Finally there were the filet mignon steaks, two inches thick, flash-sautéed then oven-finished to medium rare and served with one of the most decadent sauces I’ve ever tasted. Try this sometime—the steak sauté pan is deglazed with chicken stock followed by double cream, a generous chunk of Stilton cheese crumbled into the pan, a handful of chives, parsley, tarragon, and seasoning (including that final magic mix of a little lemon juice and a little sugar)—all reduced over high heat to a golden-hued nectar and poured over the succulent steaks.

  All the entrées were accompanied by side platters of vegetables, which included that wild mushroom risotto (pure succulent perfection), baked asparagus spears wrapped in prosciutto, tiny purple Peruvian potatoes, miniature white turnips and carrots, and daintily green baby squash. A dazzling display but hardly a dinner for squeamish dieters, although Katie insisted that she catered for all preferences.

  The plates were returned to the kitchen wiped clean. Not a morsel had been left by any of the ten dinner guests.

  “Well, I guess if the plates are so clean that means th
ey’ve still got room for dessert.” Katie grinned, putting the finishing touches on her molds of cold creamed-rice mousse topped with a caramelized crunchy sugar cap, each one carefully browned by Catriona with a tiny kitchen blowtorch and set floating in a rich, dark red lake of poached plums and Madeira sauce.

  “And now the petits fours…,” said Katie, dipping tiny wild strawberries into a warm chocolate glaze and presenting them with her just-baked star-shaped shortbread crisps to accompany the coffee.

  Half an hour later the diners had left for liqueurs in the lounge and Catriona was completing the washing up. Katie and I sat together on the patio outside the kitchen door, watching the moon creep up from behind Clisham to cast a silver shimmer across the loch and “ghost shadows” among the trees surrounding the guesthouse lawn.

  “So—wha’d’you think, David?” she asked. “Was that fun or what?!”

  “And you pulled all that together since six o’clock?!” I asked. It was barely nine-thirty.

  “Six-thirty…I think,” replied Katie.

  “Amazing—and almost everything you created came from the islands?”

  “Pretty much. The miniature vegetables and asparagus are from the mainland, but I try to use as much local produce as I can. I like to know who’s supplying my beef and lamb and game. That’s what I’m doing tomorrow night—a salmon and game dinner. The salmon is wild—not from the fish farm—and the game is from the Amhuinnsuidhe Castle—plenty of good venison…”

  “I don’t think I can think about food anymore tonight,” I said wearily.

  “Och, you’re fine. Surely y’can manage a wee dram.”

  Once again the Scottish solution to everything—“a wee dram”! In Yorkshire it’s a cup of tea, but when in the islands…

  “You know what would be fun,” I mused as we sat sipping together. “You remember we’ve got some friends coming up to stay with us for a few days next month?”