Cooking for a crowd

Whether you’re hosting your first Christmas lunch or you’re a well-seasoned pro at cooking for friends, here are our top tips to help you enjoy the occasion as much as everyone else

KNOW YOUR LIMITS

Consider the size of your oven and the amount of pans you have. A large turkey or a rib of beef with all the trimmings is a lot to cook and, if you don’t normally host dinner for lots of people, your largest roasting tin or your oven may not be big enough.

MENU PLAN FOR YOU

Don’t feel pressure to use ingredients you’ve never tried or to make dishes because they’re on trend – experiment another time. Choose ingredients and flavour combinations that are tried and tested and which you also like. It’s more likely, if you enjoy certain dishes, that your guests will, too.

GET ORGANISED

Make sure you plan the menu fully after a thorough read of all the recipes. Write a list of all the ingredients you need, plus extras like tea, coffee and napkins, and cross items off as you buy them. Also list all the jobs needed to make the meal go smoothly and prepare a time-plan for the meal with your cooking times and temperatures already calculated.

AHEAD OF THE GAME

Do as much as you can in advance.

A great meal is an amalgamation of a lot of little jobs done well and these are best achieved over the course of days rather than in a whirlwind just a few hours before you eat. Work out what you can make and freeze ahead. If you’re stressed, it won’t matter how great the food is, your mood will set the atmosphere.

CHEAT EATS

Don’t feel that everything has to be homemade. Buy in anything you’re not confident making or just to lighten the load. Buying the classic trimmings will mean you can give the main offering your undivided attention. Go to bbcgoodfood.com/xmas-awards2019 to find our favourite festive supermarket buys.

DELEGATE

Get kids involved with the prep and they’ll have a sense of pride about the meal. On the day, give everyone a role. You wouldn’t go to a restaurant and expect the chef to take your coat, cook and wash up.

FEED KIDS FIRST

Children get hangry, fact. If you’ve got a few younger children coming, feed them first and they’ll be sated, happy and will (hopefully) leave you in peace to enjoy a more relaxed meal with your friends.

BACKDOOR BAR

With fridge space at a premium, think about keeping the drinks chilled somewhere else – perhaps outside by the back door, assuming the weather is cold enough, or in a clean bath full of iced water.

NAME Le Creuset three-ply stainless steel saucepan set PRICE £271 johnlewis.com

Combining good looks with second-to-none construction, this is a set to have on display. The pans’ triple-layer stainless steel ensures even, constant heat and the solid lids make cooking with less water easier, locking in steam and flavour. Measurements marked inside the pans and curved rims for tidy pouring made us love them more.