Original subtitles

Christmas is here and it's time to get festive.

There's some wonderful British fruit and veg

braving the cold and ready for the picking.

These are the gorgeous ingredients that love Christmas as much as I do.

Ho, ho, ho. Oh, it's so good. And I'm gonna show you how to cook 'em up

in my perfect Christmas Day feast this year.

Mm.

And on the menu, an irresistible starter of smoked trout pate,

red cabbage slaw and a giant Yorkshire pudding.

This is first class. Give me more.

LAUGHING

A mind-blowing vegetarian main, my Brussels and cheese pie.

Cor. I love it.

And this year, I'm changing it up

and I'm cooking pork for my main Christmas roast.

That is a thing of beauty.

And to finish it all off, a deliciously decadent dessert.

It's gonna be the best Pavlova ever.

It's Christmas, so let's celebrate the best of the festive season

and cook something incredible.

Merry Christmas, everybody.

Before I start prepping for my family Christmas feast tomorrow,

I'm heading to the garden to pick a festive gem.

Look at this. I love red cabbage. It's dense.

So it's got slightly less water in it,

so it's much more crunchy. You can roast them,

you can caramelise them, you can grill them,

you can braise them, you can even then, in contrast,

finely slice them and make delicious little salads.

Super healthy, full of polyphenols, antioxidants.

Really good value. You get cabbages all year round,

but I think red cabbage is at its best at Christmastime.

You can do so much with it. Love it.

This classic Christmassy veg takes centre stage

in the starter for my festive feast tomorrow.

A stunning slaw with apple and walnuts,

paired with a creamy, fresh smoked fish and horseradish pate,

and a giant Yorkshire pud. My smoked trout pate

and red cabbage slaw is a spectacular way

to kick off your Christmas Day feast.

There's something charming about a Yorkshire pudding

that just makes you happy.

So let me show you how to do it. First up,

we're gonna go in with 300g of plain flour.

About half a teaspoon of sea salt goes in.

I'm gonna slowly whisk in 300 mills of milk, whole milk.

Now, the little kicker ingredient that many don't do,

100 mills of water.

It's the relationship between the water content of this batter

and the heat of the oil that gives you that lightness,

crispness and that chewy, soft silkiness.

That's for me, like, what a perfect Yorkshire pudding is all about.

We're gonna go in with eight eggs.

No shell please, it's Christmas.

And then we have a little whisk up, slowly to start off with.

Yorkshire puddings are amazing. You can do big ones, small ones

and I'm gonna do big tray-baked ones that you can tear apart

and just mop up that beautiful smoked trout pate.

Get this into a jug.

Very satisfying.

So batter, done. Put it to one side

and what I'm gonna do now is the quickest pate.

You can use any fish that's smoked.

I'm using beautiful hot smoked trout, around 300g

and then we've got two pots here of cream cheese.

Just over 300g. It's a kind of easy, rough recipe.

Er, this is a nice large lemon. Just give it a little roll.

I always find you get more juice out of it if you do that.

I'll use the zest of about half of this lemon. Smells amazing already.

Then, get all the juice you can out of those lemons.

I'll save those to put in a jug with some water later.

Season it with a little bit of sea salt.

With the trout, just check there's no bones

and just flake it in like that

and we'll take the skin off. Then some lovely herbs.

Half a bunch of chives. You could use parsley, chervil,

but nice fresh herbs are gonna be beautiful.

Just finely slice the chives.

Nice and delicate.

And then one last kicker, horseradish.

So good with smoked fish. I would say be confident,

so go three heaped teaspoons and then fold.

And that way, you get texture and chunks.

Have a little try now.

Oh, ho, ho. Oh, so good.

A little bit of extra virgin olive oil, nice little drizzle

and I'll tell you who's gonna like this, is my dad. He will love this.

So, look at that. Quick, easy, delicious

and people are gonna love it.

I wanna just cook up one tray of Yorkshire pudding,

just to kind of get you into the spirit.

I'm gonna do more when my guests get here.

Put half of that batter into a tray. That tray's 30cm by 25cm,

with half a centimetre of vegetable oil in it.

Preheated at 220 degrees Celsius, which is 425 Fahrenheit.

We're gonna let that cook for like, 20, 25 minutes.

Keep an eye on it. So we've got Yorkshire pudding cooking.

We've got that beautiful pate done.

Now I wanna celebrate these amazing cabbages that I grew in the garden.

So beautiful. What we're gonna do is make a winter salad

with loads of little accents that really scream this time of year.

We're gonna start off with a beautiful dressing.

So in a nice big platter,

I'm gonna add three tablespoons of red wine vinegar.

Add three times the olive oil. We're gonna do a big batch of salad.

Season it generously with sea salt...

...and black pepper.

We're gonna take half an onion and finely chop it.

And then if you make this the first ingredient into that vinegar,

you're gonna get a really nice,

quite subtle, pickly hum from these onions.

The cabbage is a really interesting flavour.

It's got a kind of pepperiness that's really, really delicious.

You can use a mandolin, a food processor with a slicer attachment.

I'm just gonna use knife skills.

Finely slice, as fine as you can.

You can even grate it if you want to. Just make it delicate and fine.

This is just one half

and you can see already that it starts to go a long way.

Look at the colours. I love it.

How many things in life are that beautiful colour?

So, next, sour cranberries, or cherries, if you wish.

So these are gonna be chewy, almost like candy

and that is gonna riff off that little subtle bit of bitterness

from the red cabbage. So a handful of lovely, dried cranberries

and then the nuts of Christmas are walnuts.

And all I do is just kind of crunch 'em up

and just let it snow nuts.

And then, we want any fresh, soft herbs.

Parsley, just a little handful.

That'll be fresh and irony and delicious.

And look, I can see,

the Yorkshire pudding is taking over my oven.

It's a Triffid, it's a UFO. Have a look at that.

For me, that is what Christmas is all about,

things that make people get excited.

And the one last ingredient, an apple,

possibly a little lonely pear. All right, let's do both.

Picked at the end of autumn.

Chop it up any old way. Just get it small, that's all that matters.

They're gonna discolour in about three minutes, so just squeeze

a little lemon juice or vinegar over it and that will not happen.

You can dress this now and that'll still be good in two days' time.

Very important to try now.

Mm. It's perfect.

I got it right first time, which is rare.

HE CHUCKLES

There's the salad. Just look at the colours.

This, for me, is what it's all about.

This... is what you get.

Crisp here, chewy and silky down the bottom.

It's a beautiful, beautiful thing. If you wanna plate it up, fine.

Get in there and just tear it up.

Look at that, come on.

Get yourself a nice dollop... of the pate.

Little wedge of lemon. Take some of this beautiful salad.

Let's put a couple of walnuts on there.

You can use a knife and fork if you want to,

but like, what's the point in being posh? Just get in there

and use that to mop up the wonderful pate.

Squeeze of lemon on top.

A little perfect mouthful. Bliss.

Mm.

It's sort of rustic, surprising.

The smoked fish, the cream cheese, the lemon, the Yorkie.

Oh. The red cabbage is so good.

Three amazing elements. The quickest pate,

the best, most reliable Yorkshire pudding

and then that red cabbage salad. I love it.

♪ Yeah, it fees like home. ♪

Here you go, little boy.

Right, let's get piping. Yay.

What a lovely thing.

Look, I just made a mistake. I never make mistakes.

Come on! OK. Don't tell me you wouldn't wanna eat that.

I'm gonna do a gingerbread man like Granddad.

You're making another one?

Eyes. Look, look, look, look at the face.

And then look, edible decorations. We're gonna hang it on the tree.

Ooh. That's fun.

Brussels sprouts. Some people love 'em,

some people hate 'em. We, at the Oliver household, we love 'em.

I've actually been saying the name wrong all these years.

It's not Brussel sprouts, it's Brussels sprouts,

named after Brussels and that's where Brussels sprouts were cultivated,

many, many years ago. You can just hack it.

There she is, in all of her glory.

So you got the Brussels sprouts here. These are quite small.

At the top, you've got the Brussel tops

and they are so good and delicious.

They're mighty plants, very, very nutritious,

but love 'em or hate 'em,

I couldn't have Christmas without them.

For my fantastic Christmas feast tomorrow,

I'm taking mighty Brussels to glorious new heights

in a brilliant vegetarian main.

A fabulously festive present of cheesy Brussels sprouts,

all wrapped up in a chestnut pastry.

My chestnut Brussels sprouts pie is a massive winner

for your veggie Christmas dinner.

Every year, I always like to do a veggie dish

for the Christmas table and this one is a cracker.

Let's start off with the Brussels. So in a large pan,

just whack it onto a medium high heat

and we'll start the story off with some olive oil

and a little knob of butter.

Now, I'm gonna use thyme, so just a small, little bunch here.

Just run my fingers down it like that to give you the leaves.

Get the thyme into the butter.

CRACKLING Listen to that.

Two onions.

Roughly chop it.

Lovely.

So, just slice those Brussels up.

We've got 500g of sprouts

and I wanna kind of cook 'em in a way that brings out

the natural sweetness.

A nice little pinch of black pepper and sea salt.

I'm just gonna add a little swig of water.

Let that cook for, like, 20 minutes until it's really sweet,

intense and delicious. Now,

let me show you how to make this pastry.

Chestnut pastry. It's like a thing.

The theory here, is half fat to flour.

We've got 250g of butter, so we need 500g of flour,

but I'm gonna switch up the regular flour,

so we've got 300g here of plain flour

and then, I'm gonna add 200g of beautiful, cooked chestnuts.

You can get 'em in all the supermarkets.

But we're gonna use chestnuts like flour,

so we're gonna pulse that up with a pinch of salt,

then we're gonna go into our food processor

and give it a little pulse.

And then, I'm gonna come along with one egg,

when it's come together like that.

And you'll see it start to come together like breadcrumbs

and as soon as you hear that change of sound, we stop it.

We don't want to overwork the pastry at all.

You're gonna get the most amazing texture

and flavour from the chestnuts. They're slightly sweet,

which is a really nice thing.

I'm just gonna use my hands now, just to kind of push it together.

Now you might see my finger that is a little bit black.

I caught that in the door the other day. Wind got it.

HE CHUCKLES

So this is actually more dough than you need,

but that's a good thing, especially at this time of year.

So we can take away one third and that you can wrap up,

put in the fridge or freezer, good to go.

Use a little bit of extra flour to stop it sticking.

Get a rolling pin or anything sort of round like that.

We'll roll this about half a centimetre thick

and you can see, there's a little crack here.

See that? Don't let that upset you.

You can take a little bit extra and patch it.

So we got a mould here. It is nonstick,

it has a removable base. It's 26cm.

Roll the pastry up on the rolling pin,

then we're gonna roll this back over our mould.

Just kind of encourage it into the mould and up the side.

And then, just roll it.

And you have a nice little tart case.

So, all those offcuts and that little third there,

you can make another tart later on.

You will not regret it. Sweet or savoury, this is the one.

What we wanna do now is push our thumb around the edge

to make it just kind of stand up a little bit on the rim.

And then, we're gonna prick it five or six times in there.

That'll stop steam building up

underneath the pastry and pushing it up.

Then, I'm gonna get a little bit of greaseproof paper.

And just keep folding it in half and then just measure up like that.

And what we'll get is a nice little liner.

What I would normally do is pop it in the fridge

for about half an hour to let the pastry relax

and then I'll cook it.

As out here, it's the same temperature as my fridge,

I'm gonna leave it there.

And carry on cooking this and once this has had 20 minutes,

I'm gonna turn it off and let it cool down.

I'm gonna put that into the bottom of the oven

for 15 minutes at 170 degrees Celsius,

which is 325 Fahrenheit and then what we'll do is remove it,

take the paper out along with the lentils and the rice

and then pop the shell back in, naked.

That'll just go in there for, like, five minutes.

Now, the theory of doing this is that you don't get

a tart that has kind of like

a raw bottom, right? We don't want that.

And then we can put the filling in

and create the most incredible tart.

We have the pastry shell out and it's cooled down.

So, filling. We're gonna take the Brussels

and we're gonna mix it with ricotta, 250g...

...and 150g of wonderful cheddar cheese.

I might just take a few little nuggets of blue chest.

We've got this sort of stuff around at this time of year,

so it's good to use up the different cheeses that we've got.

I'll take a fork and just mash it up.

We'll season it with some pepper

and three lovely free range eggs.

I'll just whip up the eggs.

And then I'm gonna go in with the Brussels.

And then just loosen it with just, like, 150 mills

of single cream. So just fold it through now.

Now, you could bake that in the oven

and that would be delicious, but it's Christmastime

and it's got to be the best of the best.

So, in the same food processor you've been using,

I just want you to take one slice of bread, white, brown

and then a little handful of almonds

or any nut that you can get your hands on.

With just a few bits of thyme

and then just a little drizzle of olive oil.

Just whizz it up for 20 seconds.

And there you go.

These are gonna create the most amazing topping

and crunch. So you can do all of that

the day before Christmas, right?

That will sit very happily in a fridge.

So we're gonna put that in the oven at 170 again,

for about 50 minutes until golden and delicious.

Here it is. It's cooled down a little bit.

Put it on a dish so this falls off.

Just get the knife under so it just, shake it, shake it, shake it.

Look at that. It's a beautiful thing.

And let's hope for a nice, crispy bottom.

Cor. I love it.

Beautifully cooked pastry.

Mm. Yeah, that's mega.

That is a real celebration of Brussels sprouts.

They're sweet, they're delicious.

The chestnut pastry is a joy.

That little sort of hum of that tiny bit

of blue cheese we put in, delicious.

Honestly, if you've got a veggie coming round this year,

cook this up and this'll put a smile on their face. Happy days.

Do you think they're gonna notice that there's a little slice missing?

We'll see.

It's the night before Christmas

and I'll be cooking up my main course tomorrow.

I've got loads done today, but there's one get-ahead dish

still to prep before I start on the main event.

At Christmastime, you've got to have a delicious dessert

and yes, we're gonna do Christmas pudding,

but my favourite and my mum's favourite is a Pavlova.

I'm giving beautiful pears a Christmas makeover

with mulled wine.

Joining the party is the lightest meringue,

whipped cream, chocolate sauce and toasted nuts.

My mulled wine pear Pavlova

adds a flourish of Yuletide sparkle to your Christmas menu.

So, at this time of year, we've got the beautiful fruits from autumn.

These have been stored and the thing about pears is

they ripen better off the tree. And look at these,

wonderful Comice pears. Big, fat and bulbous, perfect for poaching

and now they're just absolutely amazing.

Let's just sweep away these. We'll compost those.

And then I'm gonna grab a little knife

and we're just gonna go to the rear of the pear.

Stick that blade in, rotate it to take out the core

in a really beautiful way like that.

So I'm gonna use seven pears.

Get the pears into a nice, snug-fitting pan.

We're gonna take the liquid, a lovely fruity red wine.

You could use white wine, you could use cider, you could use fruit juice.

I'm gonna add 200g of sugar

and then the great thing is we get to infuse those pears

and the wine with things from the season.

It's Christmastime, I'm thinking mulled wine,

so what I'm gonna do is take some of those classics

but be very delicate with it.

One star anise. Two cloves. Just a little inch of,

or slightly bigger than an inch, of cinnamon. Subtle, subtle.

And then, two clementines and I'll squeeze the juice

and then we'll put the clementine in as well.

A couple of bay leaves.

We could have a little bit of rosemary.

This is gonna create, like, a liquor that is so layered

and flavoured and gorgeous.

And then we bring it up to a simmer and just poach them for like,

15, 20 minutes until the pears are really silky smooth

and delicate, but still holding their shape.

Don't overcook 'em. And that, with the cream and the chocolate

and the nuts is gonna be a Christmas Pavlova

like you've never seen before.

Right, we're gonna do a five-egg meringue.

So, free range eggs.

I'm gonna separate the egg yolks from the whites.

Obviously, we want the egg whites for the meringue.

The yolks, you can use to put in your scrambled eggs

in the morning or you can make some custard.

Go in with the egg whites. A nice little pinch of salt.

250g of white sugar. So let's get it on a whisk.

So as soon as those egg whites come up,

you can hear the sound change a little bit.

Now we can start adding the sugar, fairly slowly.

Turn it up, full whack. So let that keep going.

Let's have a little wipe down.

That's been going for about eight minutes.

Just take a little bit of that meringue on your finger

and if you can feel any graininess,

any sort of sandy vibes, nah.

That's perfect. Super smooth. So you can do it by hand.

Use one of those hand whisks. Little tip would be,

just take a little bit of your meringue

and put it on the tray. It helps it glue and stick.

So look, that's going nowhere.

There's something so beautiful about meringues. Look at that.

Just use your spatula to make a rough circle.

It will puff up a little bit in the oven.

It definitely doesn't need to be perfect.

So look, let's put this in the oven and we're gonna cook it

for one hour 20 minutes at 130 degrees Celsius,

which is 250 Fahrenheit. Once it's cooked,

just turn the oven off and leave it for an hour.

So then, me and my best mate, Conker,

can crack on with the next part of the recipe.

I'm gonna get some lovely hazelnuts.

We're gonna toast off some nuts, just to kind of get 'em a little golden

and amplify those beautiful flavours.

So what I'm gonna do is make a nice,

basic chocolate sauce. Take a little bowl.

I'll put that above the pears

and that will get warm enough to melt the chocolate.

I'm gonna use two 100g packs.

I would suggest 70% cocoa solids

will give you a lovely, lovely result.

Snap them up.

Have a little bit yourself...

...and then grab a nice, generous knob of butter.

I'm not gonna weigh it.

And that'll start to enrich the chocolate

and also stop its ability to solidify hard again.

Just a little swig of cream goes in and a little pinch of salt.

Slowly melt the chocolate, as you can see it's doing,

over that residual heat from the poaching pears.

So, pears, poaching beautifully.

These nuts are done, so let's switch that off.

The chocolate sauce is looking good.

Now, I wanna just tell you something about chocolate.

Can you see how it's looking a little bit split?

That's normal because you've got the butter and fats from the chocolate.

Now, if you just grab a little cold milk or cold cream...

...that'll just re-emulsify everything.

Nice and shiny and gorgeous.

So this is all part of our kit of parts

to make this Pavlova the best Christmas Pavlova ever.

For the hazelnuts, just give 'em a bash.

Ah. Look at that.

So last but not least, we've got the cream.

Just put a couple of tablespoons of sugar into it

and then I've got some lovely vanilla extract

and I'll take about two teaspoons

and that flavour is phenomenal.

Whisk it up to soft peaks. Don't over-whip it.

And then we can just kind of keep that to one side and tomorrow,

we can put the pavlova together at the last minute.

It will look great, it will look dramatic.

So look, I think that is it. Soft peaks have been achieved.

The pears have had about 15, maybe 20 minutes.

They smell amazing.

Oh. Look at the colour. Really Christmassy.

Now we're left with this, here.

I'll remove the spices and the herbs.

Bring this to the boil and reduce it at least by half

until it's a little bit like honey or maple syrup

and then we can drizzle that over the pears tomorrow.

These pears are amazing. When you cut into them,

it's like the most magical little cross section

where you've got the stain of all those Christmassy spices and wine

and then the lovely sort of pearly white inside, which I love.

And if you have a little try.

Ah.

It's so fresh and the contrast between the flavour on the outside

and the sweetness and the simplicity of the inside,

it really is very, very joyful.

So I've got my pears for my Pavlova,

I've got the nuts, cream, chocolate sauce

and the beautiful meringue.

It's looking rock and roll.

And that will be the perfect ending to a beautiful Christmas meal.

Then, when the guests are here tomorrow,

I'll layer up the cream, add the mulled wine pears and their syrup,

sprinkle with nuts,

drizzle with decadent chocolate sauce and shaved chocolate.

The perfect festive finale for your Christmas table

and I can't wait for them to eat it.

Dad, you take the carrots, I take the biscuits.

If I leave the carrots here, do you think I should peel them?

Reindeers don't really care.

Is he gonna be able to drive his sleigh if he's had a sherry? Yeah.

OK. He has magic.

Controversially this year, I'm not doing turkey.

Nope, I'm gonna do an Italian-inspired porchetta.

It is gonna be the most delicious thing.

We're gonna do all the trimmings. Roast potatoes,

gravy, some incredible veg,

plus some surprises. So let's get cooking.

For my family Christmas meal later,

I'm roasting sensational seasonal root veg till crispy and delicious.

Cheeky roast potatoes with a clever tip for extra flavour,

both served alongside my festive porchetta

that's gonna give the traditional turkey a run for its money.

A beautiful porchetta. It's, essentially, stuffed pork,

tied up, roasted. Let's start off with the stuffing.

I've got a nice big pan. Put it onto a sort of medium high heat.

Get some olive oil in here and a little knob of butter.

Four lovely red onions. You can use white onions if you wish.

I'm gonna finely chop them now. Do that any old way.

I'm gonna get my mum,

my auntie and uncle coming round today. My little girl is away.

So Christmases, they're different aren't they, over the years?

But the one thing that doesn't change is the love and the care.

So reasonably roughly chopped onions.

Then, I'm using four or five rashers of pancetta or smoked bacon.

Let's get that fat melting.

We're gonna go in with some whole fennel seeds,

about a heaped teaspoon goes in.

You get a fragrance that just is so, so good.

I'm gonna go heavy on the black pepper, a couple of good pinches.

And then we've got some herbs in our story,

some bay leaves. They'll be beautiful. Some rosemary.

We'll take the stalks off the little sprigs.

A little bit of thyme.

And just chop it up fine, a bit chunky. We'll have all of that.

Then we go in with our onions.

Layers of flavour.

Then, we're gonna use some offal. It's optional.

Some people are funny about offal.

Just get yourself, like, 150, 200g of chicken livers.

So you put that in milk.

It really is a good way just to kind of freshen up

those chicken livers, so we'll let that just sit in the milk.

We have here, a little mixture of apricots,

cranberries, sultanas and raisins.

If you get a little pop of sweetness, it is so delicious.

They'll start caramelising with the onions.

Also, a little handful here of pine nuts.

So, let's let that do its thing.

This has been cooking down for, like, ten, 15 minutes.

I'm gonna make a little well in the middle.

Put a knob of butter here in the middle

and then add your chicken livers but without the milk

and we'll just fry those off.

A little bit of seasoning. There is a spice that I haven't used yet,

but there was a robin, there was a robin covering up my spices.

Nutmeg.

So grate in half a nutmeg.

It's fragrant, particularly good to season meat and stuffings.

This is very tasty cooking, right here.

I wanna hydrate that fruit a little bit.

We can take white wine, red wine, port, cider.

A little generous glass goes in.

As soon as that liquid has mainly cooked away,

the next stage is bread.

So bread has always been good at stretching food further,

but also it's absorbent ,so it will take drippings from that and that.

Let's turn the heat off. I'm gonna remove the bay leaves.

They've done their work. Mix in a couple of good handfuls of bread.

Let that cool down a little bit

and then we can prepare the pork for stuffing.

It's super, super simple.

So, what we have here is a beautiful loin of pork

with the belly attached. So, of course, it's perfect for folding

and trapping in stuffing.

You can make it much cheaper by just going belly.

You can roll it exactly the same way. It's still joy, joy, joy.

I've asked the butcher to remove the skin

cos it's easier to carve with the skin off.

We'll make the best cracklings, right, for sure.

So what I'm gonna do is just score it across the fat

because we want the fat to render out.

So look, this is a five kilo chunk of pork.

This will serve, like, 15 to 20 people.

I've got, like, ten coming round, so I only need that,

but that's gonna be my leftovers.

We're going to rub this with a little Vin Santo,

which is, like, a sweet white wine. Or sherry.

When I roast it, it will go jammy and sticky and gorgeous.

Salt and pepper.

And then let's just roll that up and pop that there.

Let me show you the easiest way

to do a pork tie up.

So I'm gonna get, like, a seven bits of string.

Lay it in front of us, about an inch apart.

If you do this badly, it doesn't matter.

Your only job is to tie this meat up. Lay that like that.

Make some light, little cuts,

just to kind of get a little bit of traction on the stuffing.

This stuffing isn't fully cold, which is fine

cos I'm gonna roast it straight away,

but if you're gonna do this the day before,

or the day before that, then let it get fully cold.

I've got leftover stuffing here.

We can put that in a little dish, so nothing will go to waste.

And then, just take this belly and wrap it like this.

It'll always push some stuffing out and you can just push it back in.

With the string, the trick is to do a little double loop

and then, go as tight as you can, then we tie it.

You can see that double knot working

cos when you go to tie the knot, it doesn't slack off.

Then, trim these up like that. Look at this.

Come on. It's Christmas.

So you can do all of that the day before

or even two days before Christmas, right?

That'll sit very happily in a fridge, ready and raring to go.

So in the tray, we're gonna do a little trivet,

something that holds the roasting meat off the tray.

Carrots, onions, celery. The pork will go on top.

That is now ready for roasting.

Right, crackling. Score the underside, any old how.

Put some salt on that fat and even fennel seeds if you wish.

And then, on the skin side, take a knife

and just do little scores, here and there.

So let's cook this beautiful pork.

So we're gonna take the skin out and I'm gonna place it on the bars.

The fat rendering out of it will drip onto the pork,

not the oven, right, into the tray. Naturally basting it,

giving you the best pork ever.

So we're gonna cook that now at 180 degrees Celsius,

which is 350 Fahrenheit, for three hours.

I'll remove the crackling when it looks perfect.

It could take an hour, it might take a little bit more

and that is gonna be a beautiful thing.

Whilst that's cooking, it's the perfect time

to knock out two epic Christmas sides.

Crispy root veg and everyone's festive favourite,

my best ever roast potatoes.

There's a few things to make root veggies taste really, really good.

The parsnips, the carrots, we've got turnips and swede.

You'll see 'em all around the markets and supermarkets now.

Ironically, don't too much. Don't peel it.

Leaving the skin on makes them more tasty and it's less work.

I've got the parsnip here, look at that.

Take that end off, cut lengthways.

Trim off that little inner centre

and then clank these up into nice sort of brave chunks.

Then we've got some lovely, little carrots here.

Then, we've got beautiful turnips. Look at the colour of those.

Cut them into sixths or eighths

and then last but not least, a humble friend, Mr Swede. Under loved.

If the skin's really good, keep it on.

If it's a bit tatty, just whip it off.

Often known just for boiling and smashing,

it's got a kind of earthiness that's so good.

So there you go. Four beautiful root veggies.

Add a couple of garlic cloves, but just in their skin.

They'll go really sweet and delicious.

Herb-wise, any woody herb. Bay works well,

rosemary, beautiful as well. Maybe a little bit of sage,

with some salt and pepper.

And then vinegar is the secret ingredient, trust me.

So a nice tablespoon or two of cider vinegar,

white wine vinegar, something like that. That little tang

and it'll just give a really nice edge

to those roasted veggies. So we're short of fat,

but the fat's in there. Let's go foraging for some fat.

So we're nearly an hour in

and you can see beautiful things are happening.

That'll have another two hours

and I'll remove that crackling when it looks perfect.

So give that a nice little toss-up.

In 30 seconds, it's so cold here that that beautiful pork fat,

which has been dressed around these root veg, has solidified.

What I'm gonna do is cook that pork for the full three hours.

When it comes out to rest, for an hour and a half,

I'm then gonna put my roast potatoes

and these beautiful seasonal root veg in the oven

and roast them for, like, an hour, hour and 20 minutes

until they're perfect.

Got my party jumper on and look at that.

Oh, ho, ho, ho. That is a thing of beauty.

So, this is a very important moment in any roast dinner.

We're gonna let this pork rest.

When you take any meat that's been roasted out of the oven,

it doesn't stop cooking.

The temperature's gonna go up in the next 15, 20 minutes, not down.

It's gonna sort of slowly cool down

and all the moisture will go back to where it came from.

So you're gonna get a much more juicy

and well-cooked piece of meat than you could ever imagine.

Oh, it's... I can feel that it's so tender.

Put that onto a platter to rest.

Put some foil on top

and then a tea towel.

So that's doing its thing. I've got the crackling there.

Look at that. Absolutely incredible.

And then here, in the tray, you can see all that fat

for you to store for another day.

Just pour that into a little airtight jar.

You can put herbs in there if you wish.

Then you're left with just a little bit of fat here.

And that's gonna go in my roasting tray for my potatoes.

And you've got all these sticky bits.

This is immense flavour,

which in turn will give you the most amazing gravy.

Take one tablespoon or two of flour

and a nice tablespoon of cranberry sauce

and then, here's when things have a little tweak of difference.

So we take a nice Maris Piper potato,

we peel it, we cut them quite chunky.

We parboil them, traditionally in water,

for about 14 minutes and then we drain.

I didn't do that this year cos I parboiled in chicken stock.

Every year, I'm thinking, how can we do it better?

How can we do it better? I did it a couple of months ago

and I got the most incredible roast potatoes ever.

Just chuff 'em up like this until they're nice and broken up

on the outside, so you get the crispy bits.

We've got this gravy here, so that little bit of starch

from the potatoes will only add to the natural thickening of your gravy.

Then, all I'm gonna put in here is rosemary,

some garlic, just a bulb in the skin.

Toss it in all that lovely pork fat. Come on.

This is gonna be the ultimate roast potato.

Sea salt and pepper.

So these both go in now for about an hour,

hour and 20 minutes. Same temperature, 180,

while that rests and that slowly simmers,

my mum and dad and all the guests will turn up soon

and it's gonna be beautiful. Delicious food,

done with a lot of love and care.

Let's get these in the oven.

Yay. We're here. Welcome to my little shack.

Jamie, look at this.

Absolutely magical. Wa-hey, Jamie. Hey!

Here comes trouble.

I hope you lovely lot are hungry.

We're gonna have the most delicious smoked trout pate.

Dad, these red cabbage are from the garden.

Ooh, yeah, lovely. Mm.

This is first class. Give me more.

Bless you, Dad. Mm. Mm.

Right, everyone, have a little look at this. Here we go.

It looks lovely. Porchetta. It's juicy and it is delicious.

That looks awesome. Look at all the juices running on it.

It's beautiful. Oh, wow. Wow. Look at that.

You got to tell me what you think about these potatoes.

They've had a tweak to the regular recipe.

Ooh.

Brussels sprouts tart. It's outrageously delicious.

Cracklings, everyone? Jamie, this crackling,

it's the creme de la creme.

What do you call a magic dog? A labracadabrador.

Oh, that's good.

We're gonna do a Christmas Pavlova.

I'll have a very large piece, please.

THEY LAUGH

♪ We wish you a merry Christmas

♪ And a happy new year. ♪

THEY CHEER Happy Christmas, everyone.

All right, Mum, you're serving.

Merry Christmas, guys. Cheers.

Merry Christmas. Cheers.

You are the best of the best.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media

One, two, three.

Hooray.