OLIVER TWISTS MAKE YOUR FESTIVE FEAST A DODDLE
Christmas comes early for TV chef Jamie Oliver. finds out why festive cooking is a family affair
Do you get stressed by cooking Christmas dinner? ONLY a little bit. Not so much by the cooking as the occasion.
The default Oliver Christmas is 30-odd people. If I haven’t got it together by the time they turn up, it’s manic.
They all turn up and want to hug and kiss and talk, which is lovely, but I want them to get tasty hot food as well. It’s a lot of pressure, so you have to get prepped.
If you’re clever enough and get enough done beforehand, you can actually have a nice time and enjoy the moment.
What’s your favourite recipe from your new show, Jamie’s Quick & Easy Christmas? I’M BIASED but our Quick & Easy stuffing with five ingredients is a game-changer. Guaranteed you’ll love it. We cook it in a bundt tin, so it just looks like an edible crown. Camp, fun and extravagant but also really easy to do. And by taking the stuffing out of the bird, a lot of those problems with undercooked birds start to go away.
What are the biggest mistakes people make with the turkey? NEVER cook a turkey that’s just come out of the fridge. Get it out at least an hour-and-a-half beforehand. You read stories about people running turkeys under the hot tap but that’s the worst thing you can do. Salmonella everywhere.
ON THE SMALL SCREEN
What’s been your own biggest Christmas cooking disaster? I USED to make banoffee pie for dessert, which involved boiling tins of condensed milk for hours in a pan of water. I let it boil dry once and, as I’m sure you know, if you heat a tin long enough it’ll explode.
Normally it might contain tomatoes or something quite innocent but when it’s boiling black caramel, it’s really dangerous.
Luckily, no one was in the kitchen at the time but I came back to find stalactites and stalagmites of caramel all over the room.
What is involved in putting up the Christmas tree? IF YOU think The Osbournes is funny, the Olivers is madness. Peaks and troughs of happiness and tears. I always post an Instagram picture of a lovely tree but because I don’t like to bullsh*t, I say “If you knew the chaos that happened before this picture…”
Once I switch the lights on, everyone goes quiet and they’re happy. But the build-up to that is carnage: kids stepping on glass baubles, electric shocks from dodgy fairy lights, squabbling over who gets to do what. It’s exhausting.
Afterwards, I invariably collapse on the sofa with a nice glass of whisky and fall asleep.
What’s the best Christmas present you ever received? IT’S a toss-up between two. When I was seven, I got an AT-AT and a bunch of Star Wars figures. That was a big landslide moment for me.
Then when I was 12, I got a drum kit and that became a massive part of my youth.
Basically I spent my whole childhood in kitchens or rehearsing. That kept me out of trouble and brought such joy and camaraderie. Will you be making any New Year’s Resolutions come January 1? OOH, I’ve not set any yet but it’s bound to be dropping the kids off at school more, that kind of stuff. I’m not bad but I could probably do better.
■ Jamie’s Quick & Easy Christmas is on Channel 4 on Wednesday, December 19, at 8pm.