Rick Stein’s ultimate guide to cooking the Christmas dinner

In a restaurant kitchen, even professional chefs don’t have to make every element of a three-course meal.

But at Christmas, “When you’re cooking at home, you have to do everything,” says Rick Stein, “therefore your timing has to be really good. In a restaurant kitchen you’re doing four or five things really, and nothing else, also they’re all part of the same course.”

The popular TV chef, who has published his first-ever festive cookbook, Rick Stein’s Christmas, including how to organise your time “to do it all painlessly”.

He advises: “Don’t leave everything until Christmas morning, there are many, many things that you think need to be done at the last minute – they really don’t.”

From festive canapes (think mini brioche toasts with whipped feta, fresh figs and pickled walnuts) and starters (Jerusalem artichoke soup with crispy bacon) to impressive desserts to wow your guests – like semifreddo cheesecake with clementine and campari syrup, or Black Forest trifle, Stein’s recipes are designed to be made in the fortnight around Christmas. And it wouldn’t be Stein without some seafood too.

Here’s his advice for getting the meal right on the big day.

The bird

“I think Christmas is special in that it is about celebrating the same things or every year,” says Stein. “I really quite like the repetitiveness because it only comes around once a year. So turkey or goose with all the trimmings is what it’s all about. I would feel like I’d sort of let people down if it was just roast beef, even if it was absolutely wonderful roast beef.” Although Stein’s new book also has plenty of alternatives for the big day – or other days in the festive period – think venison bacon and prune shortcrust pie, glazed bone-in Christmas ham, and roast butternut squash wellington with porcini gravy.

So what are the main mistakes people make with turkey? “Overcooking it,” he says. “It’s just a big chicken really. The biggest mistake is getting too nervous and overcooking it. People worry they’re going to get food poisoning if it’s undercooked which is very, very unlikely.

“Buy yourself a [oven] temperature probe to make sure you don’t overcook it. I think the safe temperature for a turkey is something like 70 degrees C. Once you start going over that, you get this problem with dry meat.

“I do suggest wrapping the turkey in buttered muslin [but] it’s really about not cooking it too long.”

The gravy

“The best advice – people that I’ve mentioned it to seem a bit surprised – is don’t make your gravy at the last minute,” Stein says.

“I would always buy a free-range turkey or goose, so I get the giblets, and I’m making giblet stock the day before, to make that really nice and rich. Then I get some chicken stock as well.”I start with a little bit of duck fat and put a bit of flour in (I don’t like a lot of flour in my gravy). I cook that out, then make the gravy, because then I can absolutely make sure it’s quite intensely flavoured.

“The next day, I’ve got that gravy, it’s made. Just having roasted my goose or turkey, take it out and use some of the gravy to de glass the roasting tray so I get all the goodness from that [and add it in].”

Roast potatoes

The trick is to make sure you parboil the potatoes, without over-parboiling them. “I go for seven minutes in lightly salted water,” says Stein. “Seven minutes is enough if you’re using Maris Piper or King Edward, to make them a bit crumbly on the outside. “Shake the potatoes in the pan or colander to roughen up the edges a bit. I always sprinkle in a bit of polenta or semolina, to give it a bit of crumbliness.

“I tend to parboil the day before, but I don’t put them back in the fridge, I just leave them out. You can really tell the difference. And I always use goose fat or duck fat to cook them.

“But the secret, I think, is having a fairly firm potato and not in any way elastic. It’s got to have a sort of brittleness but not too brittle.

“I’m really hot on roast potatoes because I think actually the gravy and the roast potatoes are the most important part.”

“I don’t tend to put stuffing in the turkey anymore, just to cook it separately, but I always do stuffing,” he says. If he’s cooking goose, Stein prefers a sage and onion stuffing to accompany it – “because goose is so rich you want something quite bland to serve with it.

“With turkey, I tend to go for chestnut stuffing or sausage meat stuffing because turkey has got a less-rich flavour than goose. It can take a bit more flavour in the stuffing.”

Brussel sprouts

“I have cut corners by buying pre-peeled from a supermarket.” He even did a test one year and bought some of each – “I tested them both and you couldn’t tell the difference.”

Perhaps surprisingly, Stein doesn’t do sprouts with the classic chestnut and bacon combination, and prefers them alone. Stein adds: “It’s not a sort of purity. It’s the balance of the whole meal. If you put stuff with every veg, they’re just fighting against each other.”

Rick Stein’s Christmas: Recipes, Memories & Stories for the Festive Season, is published in hardback by BBC Books, priced £28. Photography by James Murphy. Available now.