CRAFTY CHEATS — FROM THE PROFESSIONALS

COMPLICATED starters add to an already bulging workload. ‘Canapés are past it,’ says TV chef Gizzi Erskine. ‘You want something to nibble, but at home you don’t want it to be so formal. What’s really simple is Devils On Horseback — wrap some dates and/or prunes in bacon, alongside smoked cheese wrapped in smoked bacon on platters.’ Richard Bainbridge, owner of Benedicts restaurant in Norwich and judge on BBC2’s Great British Menu suggests cheese and pineapple with apertifs before the meal, which he calls a ‘crowd pleaser’. DEEP-FRY YOUR POTATOES TO ELIMINATE roasting altogether, chef Vivek Singh, CEO of Michelin-starred Cinnamon

Club in London, suggests coating parboiled spuds in cornflour and cooking in a deep fat fryer for up to eight minutes instead. ‘It is a lot quicker and the potatoes are crispier,’ he says.

CHUCK ALL THE VEG IN TOGETHER

MASTERCHEF judge Marcus Wareing recommends buying baby vegetables as they ‘have young, tender skins, so they need only the lightest of scraping, rather than careful peeling, saving you time and energy’ while chef Peter Sidwell, of C4’s Lakes On A Plate, says he bungs all his vegetables into the oven in one tray together. ‘Rather than have three or four pans boiling away, I chop carrots, parsnips, red onions, sweet potatoes and butternut

squash into similar-sized pieces, add oil, salt and pepper and roast so they’re all ready at the same time,’ adds Sidwell, who says the process should take 45 minutes — around the same time he rests his turkey — and finishes them with a drizzle of honey and splash of red wine vinegar.

QUICK CRANBERRY AND BREAD SAUCE

PHIL VICKERY of ITV’s This Morning customises his shop-bought cranberry sauce with brandy and orange, while Nigella Lawson saves time on her bread sauce by using torn-up strips of bread rather than making fiddly breadcrumbs: ‘It isn’t simply laziness that makes me cut out that step,’ she says. ‘The real truth is that bread sauce made with torn-up cubes and strips of bread has a much better texture than the almost gruel-like, uniformly smooth sauce made with semolina-sized crumbs.

PIGS IN BLANKETS? SEE THE BUTCHER

DOUBLE Michelin-starred chef Adam Simmonds believes this is one occasion when there’s no point in wasting precious time making your own. ‘Buying from the butcher is immaterial as to what they’re going to taste like,’ says Simmonds. ‘You want to be with your family at Christmas, not spending all day in the kitchen.’

PERFECT PUDS AGAINST THE CLOCK

ACCORDING to chef Rosie Birkett, you can skip the arduous Christmas pud steaming process and cook it in the microwave instead. ‘It’s much easier and faster than steaming (which can take up to ten hours) and uses just two per cent of the energy,’ she says. Rosie’s recipe, exactly the same as her steamed pudding version, takes 20 to 25 minutes in the microwave.

BREEZY BRANDY BUTTER

THE difference between a so-so and a stupendous Christmas pudding can be made in minutes. ‘Beat 250g of softened unsalted butter, and add around 15g icing sugar and as much brandy as you like,’ says Adam Simmonds. ‘Roll it into logs, freeze it and defrost on Christmas Eve. It will impress the guests with very little effort.’