No one wants to slog away in the kitchen while everyone else gets festive. Thanks to these hacks and recipes from professionals, you won’t have to
When it comes to cooking during the festive season, time is tight, fridge space is at a premium and the last thing you want is to be trapped in the kitchen while your family and friends enjoy the fruits of your labour. Luckily, there are plenty of ways to get ahead. “It’s all in the preparation,” says Tom Childs, the head chef at Kerridge’s in London. “Get organised like a commercial kitchen and you’ll be relaxed by the time the big day arrives.”
From freezable, deeply delicious gravy to flavoured butters guaranteed to give the driest of meats a juicy kick, from preserves to liven up leftovers to lightweight puddings the whole family can enjoy, I tested the recipes chefs recommend making now to guarantee your Christmas larder is well stocked, no matter who ends up at your dining table.
Freezer-friendly gravy
Rather than reaching for granules or spending your time scraping remnants from the bottom of a roasting tray while juggling other dishes, prepare a concentrated gravy ahead of time and keep it in the freezer or the fridge until you need it. Martyn Wilson, the head chef at Timberyard in Edinburgh, recommends roasting about 1kg of chicken wings and turkey drumsticks in a 200C oven for 40 minutes, until they take on a dark brown caramelisation, then adding them to a large pot with chopped onion, carrots, celery, a teaspoon of peppercorns and a tied bundle of thyme, rosemary and bay leaves. Cover with water and simmer for two to three hours before straining.
“That liquid is your basic stock,” he says. From there, if you’re really keen, “you can repeat the process with fresh ingredients and the same liquid [in place of water] to give it extra flavour, or reduce it down to a glaze, which takes around an hour of cooking back in the pot”. Once you have your glaze reduction, you can use it as the base for a gravy “by adding in a splash of water and any bits from your roasting tray on the day, or blending in mushroom powder to give it an umami boost”.
I tried this with chicken wings and scraps from the butcher as the meat base, skimming the excess fat from the stock while it was reducing. Rather than adding mushroom powder, I dolloped in a teaspoon of Marmite to enhance the umami quality. The result was a lip-smackingly savoury sauce to rival any shop-bought shortcut. Easy to portion, it can live in the fridge for at least a week or the freezer for a few months; just ensure you let it thaw before reheating it.
Batch-made cocktails
Shaking up a cocktail while guests arrive can take precious time away from other kitchen duties. Instead, make a batch of bloody marys in advance to create the perfect indulgent drink for breakfast, lunch or dinner, says Chris McClurg, the chef-owner of the Belfast restaurant Regency House.
Following his recipe, I poured a 750ml bottle of Big Tom tomato juice – “you can use any brand, I just find that Big Tom is readily available in supermarkets and great quality”, he says – into a large jug with 100ml of freshly squeezed lemon juice, 100ml of Worcestershire sauce, 5ml of Tabasco, two teaspoons of ground black pepper and 3g of celery salt.
“Put some clingfilm over the top and it can happily live in the fridge for weeks,” McClurg says. When you’re ready to serve, pour it into a glass with ice and add in 35ml of vodka and 15ml of dry sherry per person, or leave it as a virgin mary,” McClurg says. “You can tailor the alcohol content and then garnish with a gilda [an anchovy, a green olive and a pickled chilli on a skewer] or a celery-salted celery stick for a bit of glamour.” The dry sherry is a delicious touch, balancing the spice and savouriness of the drink, while I recommend adding a spicy rim to your glass using the Mexican spice blend Tajin.
If fridge space is tight, Sandia Chang, the sommelier at Kitchen Table in London, likes to infuse gin with Sichuan peppercorns and keep it in the freezer to add a kick to a negroni or a gin and tonic. Toast one teaspoon of Sichuan peppercorns in a dry pan over a medium heat until fragrant. Tip the spice into a 700ml bottle of gin and let it infuse overnight before straining.
No-churn clementine ice‑cream
For those dreading the prospect of a stodgy Christmas pudding, this featherlight no-churn ice-cream from Kelly Cullen, the head pastry chef at Cornus in London, is a tasty alternative you can whip up in advance and keep in the freezer for two to three weeks, provided it’s well wrapped.
The recipe uses a classic parfait as its base. Heat 67g of caster sugar and 27ml water to 116C. In a separate heatproof bowl, whisk 67g egg yolks (about four large eggs). Slowly pour the sugar and water mix into the eggs while whisking continuously until thick, then stir in a leaf of softened gelatine. Whip 200g of double cream until it forms soft peaks. Fold it into the egg, along with a vanilla pod and 167g of Greek yoghurt. Pour it into a greaseproof-lined loaf tin or plastic container and stir through the zest and juice of two clementines. Leave it to freeze overnight.
Before serving, let it sit on your countertop for 10 to 15 minutes so that it’s easy to cut into thick slices. “Customise it however you want, with grated nutmeg or even a dash of an alcohol like brandy,” Cullen says. “It’s a lot more versatile than Christmas pudding.”
The result melts on the tongue with a lingering citrus zing and is so light that it feels dangerously easy to polish off at least half the tin. For real indulgence, I sandwiched a slice between two shop-bought cookies. Cullen suggests drizzling caramel sauce on top.
Thai spice rub
Sauces and condiments may be the standard way to enliven a Christmas lunch plate, but a quick spice rub generously applied to your meat of choice the night before cooking can ensure the star item is so full of flavour it needs little other accompaniment.
Sebby Holmes, the head chef at the Thai restaurant Farang in London, recommends his recipe for a northern prik laap spice blend that can keep for weeks in a jar in a cupboard. Take one tablespoon of Sichuan peppercorns, two teaspoons of coriander seeds, one teaspoon of cumin seeds, one star anise, three cloves and a 2cm cinnamon stick and toast in a dry pan for two to three minutes until fragrant. Separately, toast eight dried red chillies until brittle. Once cool, grind it all to a fine powder and mix with two tablespoons of salt.
I rubbed mine generously over a chicken the night before roasting and it made for a moreishly crispy skin spiked with enough heat to penetrate the meat underneath. Holmes suggests stir-frying any leftover meats with shallots, garlic and a heaped spoonful of the spice blend before adding a dash of fish sauce and mint, coriander and spring onions to create a laap dish in 10 minutes or less.
Mincemeat
Much more than a filling for festive pies. The booze-spiked, syrupy-sweet flavour works with ice-cream, crumbles, brownies and even toast. Childs makes his mincemeat by covering 100g of raisins, 150g of sultanas, 300g of prunes and 100g of currants with warm armagnac and 40ml of orange juice, soaking it for a day to render the chewy dried fruit plump and full of life.
To the strained fruit mix, add 150g of freshly grated bramley apple, 50g of candied orange peel, a pinch each of cinnamon, nutmeg and clove, 100g of butter and 125g of muscovado sugar. “Experiment with the quantities depending on your taste, as some people might like more sugar or fewer dried fruits and more freshness,” Childs says. “Once it’s all mixed together, cook it down in a pan for a few minutes to soften the apple and take the edge off. In the restaurant, we then fold in 100g of chopped 70% cocoa dark chocolate for even more indulgence. You can make it months in advance and the longer you give it to mature, the better it tastes.”
I added a touch too much apple to my version, but balanced it with a tablespoon more sugar. After a few days, the mincemeat made decent-quality pies with shop-bought shortcrust pastry; after a week, the flavour had become richer, the sweet and sour notes turning vanilla ice-cream into a gourmet rum and raisin sundae. Definitely worth making sooner rather than later.
Compound butters
Blending herbs and spices into butter is a speedy way to inject flavour into your show-stopping dish. The resulting blocks can be kept wrapped in the fridge for weeks or portioned into slices in the freezer for at least a month. Ruhi Parmar Amin, the head chef at Firangi in London, suggests making a tadka butter, using the Indian technique of tempering spices, to melt over meat, drizzle over eggs or slather on a leftovers sandwich.
Pour 40ml of ghee (or a neutral vegetable oil) into a pan alongside 10g of mustard seeds, 10g of cumin seeds and 20 fresh curry leaves until they bloom and splatter. Mix in 8g of asafoetida, 10g of Kashmiri chilli powder, 10g of coriander powder and 5g of turmeric powder. Add salt to taste and cook for no longer than three to four minutes, otherwise the spices will burn and turn bitter. When this has cooled, whip 500g of butter for five minutes – until it starts to become pale – then slowly pour in the spices.
The result is the concentrated flavour of a curry in butter form. Placing a slab into scrambled eggs while they cook makes for a hedonistic Boxing Day breakfast. Parmar Amin also suggests spreading it under the skin of a chicken or a turkey.
Blood orange and plum preserves
Perfect as a last-minute edible gift, these will take your cheese plate – or even just slices of toast – to chef level. Mat Appleton, the co-founder of the cafe and deli Fink’s in London, makes a tart plum and bay leaf jam, featuring cinnamon, cardamom and lemon zest, which works with cheeses and puddings, but I opted instead to make his delightfully tangy blood orange marmalade for use at breakfast, as well as in leftovers sandwiches and bread-and-butter puddings.
In a sturdy casserole pot, cook 550g of whole blood oranges in 750ml of water for about 40 minutes, until the oranges go soft. Strain the liquid and place aside, then halve the oranges, scoop out the flesh and press through a sieve. Cut the rinds into thin slices.
To the liquid in the pot add the orange pulp, the sliced peel, 600g of caster sugar, the juice and zest of half a lemon and a vanilla pod. Put it on a high heat, stirring constantly until it reaches 105C, which takes about 20 minutes. Once it’s cooked, Appleton recommends adding 100ml of verjus – an acidic grape juice that can be bought online – to balance the sweetness, then pouring it into sterilised jars.
“It’s nice to have a zingy, citrussy breakfast while the kitchen is firing up on Christmas morning,” he says. “If you add some labels or twine to your jars, it also makes a really thoughtful gift.” Provided the jars are sterile and airtight, the marmalade should last for at least a year.
Foraged infusions
If you’re feeling particularly adventurous this holiday season, the chef James Aikman of Skua in Edinburgh suggests heading outdoors and foraging your own ingredients to spruce up your dinners. Scattered throughout the UK, douglas fir trees lend a Christmas flavour to an infused honey. Pick a small amount of fresh green needles from the branch of a tree and submerge them in warm honey in a sterilised jar. “After a few days, it’s the taste of Christmas,” Aikman says. “The douglas fir has a citrus flavour that makes the honey go so deliciously with shellfish or celeriac and beetroot. I’d recommend it in a hot toddy, too.”
For those who live in an urban jungle, Aikman suggests making an infused mushroom oil instead, which can be drizzled over eggs or used as the fat for roasting carrots and parsnips. Choose a firmer mushroom, such as shiitake, chestnut or girolle, and confit them in a pan of neutral vegetable oil by cooking them at a low heat – between 75C and 80C – for an hour, until the oil goes cloudy and the mushrooms become fudgy. The resulting oil is an umami flavour bomb, less pungent but no less luxurious than a truffle oil. The mushrooms themselves can be fried up separately to add a gourmet touch to a full English breakfast. Kept in a clean bottle, the oil can be used for months.
