A couple of years ago, when Tony Borthwick moved his restaurant, the Plumed Horse, from the wilds of Dumfries and Galloway to Edinburgh, it was seen as a courageous step. His little eating-place in Crossmichael was the proud holder of a Michelin star, which would automatically be lost when it transferred. So could the Plumed Horse earn another star in its new incarnation in Leith, at the heart of Edinburgh’s trendy docklands?

The answer, this year, turned out to be a triumphant yes. Tony’s cooking, which marries the very best of Scottish ingredients with a dash of French style, is enjoying a new lease of life in the capital, and drawing a new clientele to the restaurant’s tranquil primrose, green and cream dining room. Taking a leap into the unknown is something Tony has done before. At one time he worked for the Yorkshire Water Authority, and it was only in 1987, when he had broken his neck in an accident and was recovering in hospital, that he made the life-changing decision to fulfil his ambitions and take up cookery. He worked all over the place to gain experience – everywhere from a Fulham Road brasserie to the Savoy – and eventually launched the Plumed Horse at Crossmichael in 1998.

The restaurant gained its Michelin star three years later, and Tony was named Scottish Chef of the Year in 2005. Tony is always being asked how the Plumed Horse got its name. It was, he relates, suggested early on by prospective business partners when an old betting shop was under consideration as a site for the restaurant. The moniker stuck, even when a different, non-horse-related location was chosen and the partners left the project. Years later, Tony discovered that what the couple had come up with was the name of the restaurant where they were married – which is why you can find another Plumed Horse on the other side of the Atlantic, in California.

Ravioli of smoked salmon with passion fruit dressing

Serves 6

Pasta dough 500g OO flour

2 large organic eggs

Pinch of La Mancha Spanish saffron

40ml extra virgin olive oil

1 teaspoon salt Water

Sauce and dressing

100ml good fish stock

50g chopped shallot

50ml Noilly Prat

100ml whipping cream

50ml skimmed milk

1 sweetcorn, cooked, pureed and seasoned, and 90 small capers

50ml good quality extra virgin olive oil

8 passion fruit

Juice of ½ lemon

4 green cardamom pods

Ravioli filling

360g Marrbury smoked salmon, diced plus a further 75g pureed with one egg white, and passed through a sieve

20g dill, picked and chopped

20g tarragon, snipped

20g chives, finely chopped

Zest of ½ lemon

To serve:

12 good slices Marrbury smoked salmon cut across the fillet.

Salt, pepper and lemon juice to season.

Method:

Infuse the saffron with a little hot water and allow to cool. Add to the eggs and oil and then make up to 200ml with water.

Put the flour in a mixer with the dough hook and add egg mixture and salt. Allow to mix well, adding more water if necessary.

Remove from mixer and knead until shiny and firm but slightly elastic. Cut into 8 even sized pieces, roll into balls and clingfilm individually. Allow to rest in the fridge for an hour. Freeze 7 for use another time. Bring fish stock and shallot to boil and reduce by half. Add Noilly Prat and bring to the boil again. Add cream and bring back to boil, reduce to coating consistency, add the skimmed milk and remove from heat. Season and pass through fine sieve. Reserve. Remove flesh from passion fruit and pass through a sieve.

Bruise the cardamoms and add to the mixture with a little water in a pan. Bring to the boil and reduce until strong flavoured. Allow to cool and add olive oil a little at a time until you get the balance of flavours correct. Adjust with lemon juice if required.

This is a split dressing, and will need to be shaken in a bottle just before serving. Put the smoked salmon puree in a bowl with the diced salmon, herbs and lemon zest. Mix well. You do not need to season this ravioli filling at all. Form into 70g balls with 2 large spoons and reserve in the fridge. Take remaining ball of pasta dough and run through your machine. You need a long 70-80 mm wide strip of pasta.

Take it through the finest setting a couple of times to make sure. Place your six balls of smoked salmon filling along the length and cut evenly. Fold them all over the top of each ball of salmon. Neatly pinch around each ball until you have even, air bubble free ravioli. Trim with scissors or a pastry cutter. Store in fridge between clean tea towels. Warm fish sauce and bring a pan of water to rolling boil. Place slices of smoked salmon on plates evenly, dot sweetcorn puree around and scatter capers.

Plunge raviolis into the boiling water and stir with slotted spoon so they don’t stick. Remove after 4 minutes and allow to drain on clean tea towel for 1 minute.

Place one on each plate, then froth sauce with a cappuccino whisk, saucing each one. Finally, drizzle with dressing and serve immediately.

Loin of lamb with its braised shoulder, spinach, root vegetable and pearl barley

1 lamb shoulder, boned and all meat removed and trimmed

2 cloves garlic

1 large sprig thyme

Salt and freshly ground white pepper

Lamb bones (your butcher will give you more to make better stock) All lamb trimmings, no fat, just small pieces of meat.

Minimum 300g meat

15ml sherry vinegar

25g tomato puree

1 litre good chicken stock

1 litre water

50g each carrot, cerleriac, shallot

2 cloves garlic

1 large sprig thyme

Half a bottle good red wine

1 corn fed chicken breast, trimmed of fat, skin and sinews

1 packet baby spinach, washed, with 50-60 small leaves reserved

1 egg white

Salt, pepper and nutmeg

6 loin fillets lamb, trimmed

All the lamb’s fat, rendered down in oven, passed through a sieve and cooled

30 squares of Golden Wonder potato

1 quantity crepinette (pig’s caul fat)

100g swede, cut into 5mm dice

100g carrot, cut into 5mm dice

100g celeriac, cut into 5mm dice

100g pearl barley, soaked in cold water overnight

Method:

Take the muscles of the shoulder down individually and trim all of fat and sinews – internal and external. Any muscles that are still round need to be cut through, so you will end up with a large flat oblong of meat on top of a sheet of clingfilm. Finely slice 2 cloves garlic and scatter with thyme leaves over meat. Season with salt and freshly ground white pepper. Start to roll up like a swiss roll, pulling it tight in the clingfilm as you go. Re wrap a few times in clingfilm and poach for six hours – in the clingfilm – in water that is below simmering point. Remove after six hours, carefully take out of clingfilm, re wrap again tightly in more clingfilm, allow to cool and refrigerate overnight to allow flavours to develop. Roast lamb bones in oven until browned.

Sear meat trimmings in a heavy pan and when browned, remove. Add the vegetables and brown. Then add the tomato puree and cook for 1 minute. Add the sherry vinegar, garlic and thyme. Add wine and put meat trimmings back into pan. Add the bones, the water and the chicken stock. Simmer until you need to skim stock and continue until it has reduced. This will take about 90 minutes. Pass liquor through a cloth and fine sieve into another pan and reduce quickly until sauce consistency. Adjust seasoning if desired. Store in fridge.

Puree the chicken breast with egg white and keep in the processor bowl in the fridge. Cook spinach, allow to cool and add to chicken farce. Pass through a sieve. Season with salt and fresh white pepper, then nutmeg. Reserve. Cut lamb shoulder into six even pieces and remove clingfilm. Season with salt lightly and add dollop of spinach mousse on top of each piece of shoulder. Lay a piece of crepinette on top of the mousse and tuck in around the sides. Wrap each individually in clingfilm. Store in fridge until required.

To serve, put your mini shoulder joints into simmering water for 12 minutes, remove from clingfilm and keep warm in a low oven. Butter the tops lightly. Heat 2 heavy non-stick sauté pans. Add a teaspoon of lamb fat to each. In one, put the diced potatoes and allow to cook evenly on all sides on low to medium heat. In the other pan, put the lamb loin fillets. Cook quickly to colour on all sides to seal the meat, then season with salt and pepper. They will only need about 4-5 minutes in the oven at 175-180ºC, so timing here is crucial. Warm up sauce.

Cook your three root vegetables separately and add them all to some pearl barley that is cooking in a little water and butter. Season.

Salt the selected spinach leaves and dress with a little oil, truffle oil is good. Drain residual lamb fat from potatoes and salt them. Arrange on the plate, along with the spinach and the vegetable and barley mixture. Place a lamb shoulder on the plate, and finally, carve your lamb loin fillets, sauce and serve.

Hot banana soufflé, toffee ice cream

Ice cream

10 organic egg yolks

500ml double cream

500ml whole milk

175g granulated sugar

100ml water

200g granulated sugar

100ml water

300ml double cream

Soufflé

8 large ripe bananas

Juice 1 small lemon

120g granulated sugar

80ml water

30g flour

80ml Crème de Banane liqueur.

150g egg white

Pinch of salt

Method:

For ice cream, put the milk and cream into a large saucepan and simmer. Put the water into a saucepan and then add the sugar. Bring to the boil until you have a thick syrup. Whisk yolks with electric hand blender and whilst running, add syrup. This will cook the eggs; they will double in volume. Immediately add boiled milk and cream and decant into container with clingfilm over the whole surface to avoid a skin forming. Allow to cool overnight. For toffee, put water in a saucepan first and then add the sugar. Boil until a nice rich, conker brown has been reached. Add the 300ml cream carefully. Simmer to mix well. Allow to cool. Churn previously made custard in an ice cream machine.

When almost ready, add the toffee. You may only need to use half this recipe, but make the quantity as it does not work if halved. Store until required. For soufflé, cook bananas in water and sugar with the lemon juice. Puree and cook to a jam consistency. Mix a little Crème de Banane with flour and add to the mixture, cooking gently for another ten minutes. Add rest of liqueur, cool.

Lightly butter inside of six ramekins and chill in the fridge. Remove and repeat, then dust the inside with caster sugar. Beat egg whites to soft peaks adding pinch of salt as you go. You should just be able to turn bowl upside down. Incorporate egg whites into banana mixture gently with slotted spoon, and fill ramekins. Level with palette knife and gently run point of a small knife around the top of the ramekin to loosen soufflé mix from the side. You can do this up to two hours ahead of needing them to go into oven. Cook at 150°C.

Serve the soufflés when they have risen well with ball of the toffee ice cream. You can make a tuille biscuit to hold the ice cream if you like.

field facts

The Plumed Horse 50-54 Henderson Street, Leith, Edinburgh EH6 6DE Tel 0131 554 5556, Mob 07736 807333, plumedhorse@aol.com www.plumedhorse.co.uk