How to cook the perfect Christmas dinner step by step

Christmas dinner is, without a doubt, the most important meal of the year. In no other event throughout the calendar does food, and the ceremony around it, truly make or break the occasion – imagine a dinner table that isn’t groaning with the weight of a turkey and Christmas pudding. The pressure and the weight of expectation on whoever ends up having to cook this feast are undeniably huge. It takes weeks of planning, hours of preparations and a considerable amount of money, not to mention all the conflicting advice and family tradition that has to be taken into account. In exactly one week, households up and down the country will take up the age-old argument of whether or not to cross the bottom of a sprout before cooking it, an argument based almost exclusively on what they were taught by their mothers and not on any actual science.

Food at this time of year is more than just something to eat, it is tradition and a way to bring people together (or bring them apart, depending on how many mince pies there are). However, it is also a way to impress people, whether having to prove yourself with your first time cooking Christmas dinner, struggling to beat a relative’s roast potatoes or trying to stun by replicating Nigella’s most lavish concoction. Cooking this meal is undeniably a stressful experience, most people getting up at seven o’clock to put the turkey in the oven, before launching into an enormous list of things to do, which become almost herculean tasks after the obligatory champagne, mulled wine and port throughout the morning. This year, follow these simple recipes for a beautiful Christmas dinner and to avoid sprout controversy (we advise halving them), hopefully leaving you with enough time to actually enjoy Christmas Day and open a present or two.

Catherine Phipps