Tom Kerridge Cooks Christmas

-Service, please!

-Thank you.

-I'm Tom Kerridge.

I run the only pub in the UK with two Michelin stars.

HE LAUGHS

Now, I'm very lucky, my pub is closed on Christmas Day,

which means that I have time to be in my own kitchen

and make loads of food for plenty of people to come round and enjoy.

I want to bring your Christmas dinner bang up to date with

some reinvented seasonal classics

and show you how to make the most of those core traditional flavours.

You wait all year round for Christmas to turn up,

so when it finally gets here, you want to make sure that you put

just a little bit extra effort into the food that you're serving,

so everybody can enjoy the true taste of Christmas.

Now, I love Christmas.

It is amazing - friends and family turning up,

all that tradition, and I'm going to show you how to make the best

Christmas lunch ever.

Ever, the best Christmas lunch ever.

I'm going to take the humble turkey

and make it into something super special.

I'm also sprucing up stuffing

and making some right Christmassy carrots.

Proper carrots, cooked properly.

And Christmas pud is making a revamped appearance,

alongside a sensational orange cake.

And the best thing about it is it's very easy to do.

But first I've got the most magnificent alternative

to your classic, bog standard festive ham.

It's ridiculously easy, takes no time at all and will

knock your Christmas socks off... If Santa's bought you any, that is.

Now, this is a whole piece of smoked bacon, and this comes from pork

belly. And because it's so thin, it takes on loads and loads

of flavour. And I'm just going to bake this with honey, that simple.

You can pick up a whole piece of bacon from your butcher,

and for this I've asked mine to remove the rind.

On a roasting tray, squeeze on a load of runny honey.

The best thing about using runny honey is that when you've

finished squeezing it all out of the bottle, it makes a very funny noise.

PFFT

HE LAUGHS

And I'm quite simply going to bake it for about 40 minutes.

The honey will cook and start caramelising

and all of the juices and the flavours will come out of the bacon.

It's unbelievable how simple this recipe is.

The hardest part is remembering to baste it every ten minutes,

and it's dead important that you do this to make sure that the

honey doesn't burn and the bacon gets a sensational glaze.

It is a highlight of Christmas.

# Wish you a Merry Christmas, baby! #

Ha-ha-ha!

# Happiness in this coming year! #

Looks incredible!

I'm just going to give it one last baste.

It's like the ultimate cured pork.

That's got to smash in ham every time.

And it's so versatile -

eat it hot, cold, with some lovely pickles

or next to your turkey. Seriously, just make it and enjoy devouring it.

# That's what Christmas means to me, my love! #

Whole roast bacon has got to be the way forward.

It tastes amazing and the smokiness is so strong.

And then that caramelised honey... That is a perfect bit of meat

to stick on your Christmas day table.

And don't worry if you don't eat it all,

the leftovers will be fantastic on Boxing Day.

# That's what Christmas means to me, my love! #

There's nothing better to get you in the Christmas spirit than

a bit of Christmas shopping.

For me that doesn't mean tinsel and baubles,

but some proper lush fruit and veg.

This is New Covent Garden Market in London,

and I've not only come for the festive cheer,

but to totally transform your Christmas greens.

Now, I know you all know about Brussels sprouts,

but I'm looking for Brussels tops.

And these days they're very hard to find.

You haven't got any Brussels tops, have you?

-I wish we had.

-You wish...

-It's one of my favourite vegetables,

I wish we had. No, I'm afraid we don't, no.

-You haven't got any Brussels tops, have you?

-We're sold out completely.

-Have you got any Brussels tops?

-Yeah, we've got Brussels tops,

-and we got Brussels stalks.

-You've got them on the stalk?

-Yeah.

Now, this is all I want for Christmas.

And they're going to play a big role in the best festive feast ever.

On there, you've got the sprouts. And these are things that your mum

cooks really for a long time till they're all brown

and make the house smell. But this here is the top, and this is what

I'm after. So these are the leaves, we're just going to take off, sweat

them down in a little bit of butter, some chestnuts, pinch of salt...

-OK.

-Trust me, trust me on this one.

-It sounds lovely, it sounds lovely.

I know no-one feeds these market traders, so I'm going to rustle up

a seasonal something right here to keep them going till closing.

OK, then, my friends, this for me is the most flavoursome

and most amazing part of Brussels sprouts.

You can find Brussels tops either online or put in an order

with your local greengrocer. Trust me, you won't regret it.

Can you see all these lovely, tiny little sprouts?

We'll keep these as well.

Melt a chunk of butter and then throw in some chestnuts.

You can just see the chestnuts just beginning to caramelise

and beginning to brown.

Hello, Tom, how you getting on, mate?

-How we doing, chief?

-OK.

-Literally, the sprout tops go in now.

-Excellent.

-Into the butter.

Little pinch of salt.

What that does is, that salt will draw

the moisture from the leaves and they'll cook in their own juices.

Once your sprout tops are all buttered up,

you can throw in those sweet, tiny sproutlings.

Now a nice pinch of cracked black pepper.

That smell is fantastic,

absolutely gorgeous, way better than boiled sprouts.

It's not long before the leaves are smothered with my chestnut butter

and it's feeding time for the market traders. I just hope they like it.

Come and taste something you've never tasted before,

even though you've been in a fruit and veg market your whole life.

Get in there, boys.

-Is that all right for you, my friend?

-It's very nice actually,

-yeah.

-Were you surprised?

-I'm quite surprised.

-Can we have another one?

-Yeah, get in it.

-Very nice indeed.

-Rock and roll, you've converted all of us.

Well, there you go, the boys like sprout tops.

I think that was quite a success.

Proper lush.

Now if I've changed the way you see your Christmas greens,

wait till you see what I've got planned

for your traditional Christmas turkey.

A turkey has a special place in my heart.

Every year we used to have turkey roll on Christmas day.

This is my version of a turkey roll.

So first thing I'm going to do is get on to making the stuffing mix

to go inside my turkey roll,

cos stuffing, for me, is one of the highlights of Christmas.

To 800 grams of sausage meat, I'm adding 400 grams of cooled,

sweated down onions and 160 grams of breadcrumbs.

And they need to be fresh.

What they do is they absorb all the fats and all the lovely juices.

Christmas wouldn't really be Christmas unless we had cranberries,

about 100 grams.

Dried cranberries have a wonderful flavour.

They're a little bit like little sweets.

Give it a good season, and next a tablespoon of juniper berries.

I'm going to crush 'em in a pestle and mortar,

it releases all that lovely oil and that smell and flavour.

And I can't make a Christmas stuffing without using sage.

It needs to be fairly well chopped.

It already looks Christmassy, doesn't it?

The reds and the greens.

And into this stuffing, I need some chestnuts,

otherwise known as chefs' nuts.

I'm using already cooked, vac packed ones.

These are lovely and soft, and what they do is they start to

absorb all the juices and all the flavours from the sausage meat.

Give it a right good mix -

a real good squeeze and a move around.

This is going to be well tasty inside my turkey roll,

so I'd better get on and prepare the meat.

How many people actually like turkey leg?

On Christmas day, everyone wants breast meat,

and making this amazing turkey roll is a real cost-effective way of

doing Christmas lunch without having loads and loads of turkey left over.

Now, I have here about a 2 to 2.2 kilo turkey breast,

and this is all you need. This will feed about eight to ten people.

I'm removing the skin off the breast because it never really crisps up.

Take this fillet out that sits underneath the breast.

When you cook this, the whole turkey breast will kind of curl up.

So we definitely don't want to use this, but I am going to keep it,

cos this will make amazing turkey nuggets in the new year.

Next, trim up the meat to remove any fat or sinew.

I'm just going to kind of butterfly it out into a rectangle.

Get yourself a massive roll of clingfilm.

Pull it out, over the board.

And then I'm going to stick my rectangle of turkey breast

onto the clingfilm and then put another layer of it on the top.

Now I'm going to bash it with a rolling pin,

and this is for two reasons -

tenderises the meat and allows you to roll it nice and easy and it

also relieves any Christmas tension that you might have, especially

thinking about all those relatives coming round on Christmas day.

SONG: "Deck The Halls"

I'll be honest with you, when I got that thing,

I thought I'd love it,

but it's got to the point now, and it's not even Christmas day,

and I hate it.

So once you've finished bashing out your Christmas Santa

and your turkey, roll another layer of clingfilm on top.

Then season the meat

and slap a nice dollop of that wonderful stuffing mix on the top.

I'm just going to spread it nice and evenly over me turkey.

Fold it into itself,

and with your hands, just kind of tuck it right in,

and then just keep rolling it.

You keep pulling the clingfilm nice and tight.

This is the point where I tell you that I have shares

in a clingfilm factory.

You move the turkey to, like, a 45 degree angle

and then roll it away from the clingfilm.

So what I'm doing is trying to get a long piece at the end.

You end up with two...

..motorbike handlebars.

With a ball of butcher's twine,

just wrap the string around it so it ends up nice and neat.

Now, this way of cooking in clingfilm is wonderful,

cos what it does is it keeps in all the moisture and all the flavour.

By tying this equal distances apart, you'll end up with the same

circumference all the way around. So when you steam cook this,

it cooks evenly.

I've got about ten really nice portions here,

which is perfect because there's eight of us for dinner.

But it's more than likely that Sponge, my boxer dog,

shall be having turkey for her Christmas lunch.

Place a wire rack inside a baking tray for your beautifully

wrapped turkey parcel to sit on.

Then add an inch of boiling water.

Don't worry about the clingfilm melting, the wire rack

in the baking tray keeps it away from any direct heat.

Now, you can see already the steam coming up,

and that's going to cook that turkey beautifully.

Then simply cover it with tinfoil,

and its bye-bye to dry turkey dinners.

The oven's on quite a low temperature, 120 degrees Centigrade.

Now, I'm going to cook that for about an hour and a half,

maybe two hours.

If you're going to be doing turkey, you got to do all the trimmings,

and that includes bread sauce. So I'm going to be doing a classic

bread sauce, but the difference is I'm going to be using rye bread.

You need to get your hands on a decent loaf

because it's the king of this sauce.

Then slice up half of it and remove the crusts.

I want to dry this bread out completely

and turn it into a powder,

so bang it in the oven at 120 degrees

for about an hour until crisp.

While that cools, it gives you time to make a creamy sauce.

Into a pan, pour 100 mls of double cream,

200 mls of milk

and 50 grams of butter.

Now I'm going to infuse this with some sublime flavours,

using spice.

So in with the cinnamon stick,

two each of star anise and cloves,

one tablespoon of coriander seeds

and half a teaspoon each of whole white peppercorns and fennel seeds.

Now whack up the heat and as soon as it boils, take it off and let

the milk and cream take on those incredible Christmassy flavours.

So while that reaches room temperature,

whizz up the baked bread to a fine powder.

Finally, strain the cooled milk

and then add in 30 grams of the powdered rye bread and simmer

until thickened into a creamy, decadent bread sauce with bells on.

# All I want for Christmas is you! #

OK, whilst the turkey's in the oven,

I'm going to get on with cooking the rest of this stuffing.

Now, I love stuffing. It's the highlight of Christmas for me,

one of the best things to have.

All you do to supercharge the leftover stuffing is line a terrine

mould with the smoked streaky bacon and fill it with the stuffing.

Fold the bacon back on top of itself.

Bake it for about 45 minutes in a low oven then it's under

the grill to crisp up.

Now my turkey's been in the oven for a couple of hours.

While this rests for about 40 minutes, I'm going to make

an incredible crumble topping to scatter over the turkey.

This is some sourdough and it's just been toasted lightly through

the oven to dry it out and make it go all crumbly and crisp.

Just bash this up and give some delicious pork scratchings

the same treatment.

Now I have made my own,

but as it's Christmas,

I'll turn a blind eye if you buy a packet.

And these give a wonderful crunch and it also adds a lovely

meaty flavour.

You just know it's going to be proper lush on that turkey.

Chopped dried cranberries will add magnificent sweet

contrast to the crumble and thyme gives a lovely herby freshness.

Finally, for a soft nutty taste, chopped pistachios finish

this mix off perfectly.

Give it a good mix. That is going to be an amazing flavour,

but most importantly, incredible texture to go on top of my turkey.

It might not seem like the done thing, but I'm going to smother

my turkey in some homemade brown sauce but you can buy your own.

Brown sauce is actually made with dates which are proper Christmassy.

Now, I know you're thinking, "He's gone mad at this point,"

but trust me, it allows the crumble to stick to it.

# Santa, bring my baby Back to me. #

How lush does that look?

You know that is the perfect, most beautiful turkey roll ever.

Christmas dinners will never be the same again.

# Santa, bring him home. #

The big day is almost here,

and to avoid unnecessary stress in the kitchen, it's a good idea

to get prepared on Christmas Eve. This next dish transforms

the ordinary boiled carrot into something magical and, best of all,

they can be cooked the day before. Trust me, Rudolph will love them.

These are whole carrots, going to be covered in some beautiful

butter and some sugar and a little bit of Christmas star anise.

The beautiful thing about cooking carrots whole

is they keep all of their flavour.

And these carrots have

been on the menu at my pub in some form or other since we've opened.

And we have people travel back to the pub just to have the carrots.

Now ,because I'm a bit of a perfectionist, I'm rubbing

my peeled carrots down with a clean green scourer.

You haven't got to do this, but it does give it that little

bit of extra finish just cos it's Christmas.

In a wide bowl, measure 150 grams of caster sugar.

Carrots have their own amazing sweetness,

but this sugar is going to enhance that, make it even better.

Then in with 400 millilitres of water,

three teaspoons of salt

and 250 grams of butter.

And bang the heat up.

Carrots and aniseed go really well together.

So these are star anise. I'm going to put four of these in.

These carrots will now braise happily for about 45 minutes

in this luscious liquor.

I like my carrots to be cooked all the way through,

none of that al dente stuff.

Proper carrots, cooked properly.

And remember, what's brilliant about these carrots is that all

the hard work is done on Christmas Eve.

Simply stick them in the fridge overnight and all you have to

do on Christmas Day is heat them up and enjoy another sneaky sherry.

What's happening here is the sugar's beginning to caramelise

and mix with the butter and give a really lovely

carroty star anise glaze.

Don't reduce it down too much, otherwise the butter will split out.

Got a wonderful shine on them.

Just glaze with a little bit of that lovely carrot and star anise syrup.

That for me is the perfect vegetable side dish to go

with my beautiful Christmas turkey roll.

With the main meal taken care of, I deserve a little sit down,

and can think about what snacks to leave for Santa.

Last year I crept downstairs and he hadn't touched the sherry,

so this year I'm going to make him a scrumptious festive cider

that's so good he'll leave me bigger presents.

I've come to one of the capital's biggest Christmas markets,

where the mulled wine is flowing.

But just wait till they get a sniff of my mulled cider!

First things first...

..is to work out how the bottle opener works.

OK, so I've got about eight bottles of cider in each pan

and then into each pan, I'm going to stick some soft dark brown sugar.

Now, vanilla and dark soft brown sugar

go really, really well together -

lovely flavour. A couple of pods in each one.

Now, this process, all of it, is about adding layers

and layers of flavour to the cider.

And then to go into our vats of cider

and sugar, I do like a little tea bag kind of infusion

of all of those spices that you get in mulled wine.

I put crushed cinnamon sticks,

star anise, cardamom,

some black peppercorns and fresh bay leaves into a muslin bag

and then tie it up with a nice red ribbon.

This makes absolutely no difference to the recipe,

it just looks really nice.

Now, I'm just going to bring it up to the boil and then turn it down

to a simmer and leave it for about 15 minutes to infuse with flavour.

That's just long enough to soak up some Christmas atmosphere

and sample a sausage.

Can I get the best German sausage you've got?

There we go, boss, thank you.

Right, it's back to my cider that should be ready for some

finishing touches.

So my cider's been stewing for about 20 minutes.

I'm going to give it a real good splash of dark rum,

adds to those spices, and also a really good boozy Christmas kick.

Finally,

the zest of orange.

Now, this goes in at the end, not at the beginning.

This is because it releases some beautiful orange oils, and they

stay nice and fresh. Really does give it a proper taste of Christmas.

Right then, you lot, who's up for some cider?

ALL: Yeah!

That's the reaction, that's what you want.

# Gonna have a funky

# Funky Christmas It's gonna be a funky... #

There you go, chief. Happy Christmas.

# A funky Christmas. #

If people do not get a cup of this when they come round my house

over Christmas, they're going to be very unhappy.

I cannot think of a better way to start off Christmas celebrations

than mulled cider.

Fill your boots, people.

Ho-ho-ho!

-Eh up, Santa.

-Ho-ho-ho!

Here you are, boss man, have some cider.

Oh, thank you, is this good, I like cider, do you like cider?

Oh, thank you, Tom, that's fantastic.

-Santa, it's a pleasure, mate.

-Oh, always a pleasure.

Merry Christmas, ho-ho-ho!

Love Santa Claus.

If I've changed your mind about mulled wine,

wait till you see what I've got in store

for your stodgy Christmas pudding.

I'm going to show you an amazing Christmas cake that

encapsulates everything that's lovely about this time of year -

orange and spices... And the best thing about it is

it's very easy to do.

First things first, three oranges.

I'm going to stick them into a saucepan as they are,

cover it with water.

These oranges are just going to sit on this simmering heat

and cook for about an hour and a half to two hours until even

the outsides go lovely and soft and the middles have all broken down.

By doing this, I'm removing any bitterness from the skin

so I can use the whole of the fruit in my cake.

Once cooked down, set these aside to cool

and weigh out the rest of the cake ingredients.

300 grams of ground almonds adds a lovely nutty hint to the cake,

then 300 grams of caster sugar,

two teaspoons of baking powder

and in with some Christmassy flavours -

a nice big teaspoon each of ground ginger and cinnamon.

This is a million times easier than doing Christmas pudding.

You could do this on the morning. Christmas pudding takes quite

a while to do. It's a massive amount of effort,

and I love it but if the other half doesn't,

it's a bit of a waste of time.

Once the oranges have cooled, remove any pips then whizz them up.

400 grams of this delicious orangey puree will provide amazing

moisture to my cake mix.

Then simply bung it all back in the processor and give it a good mix.

Seven eggs complete this butterless batter

and it's ready for the lined baking tin.

Cook it in a medium oven, about 160 degrees Centigrade,

and bake it for about an hour, hour and 20 minutes.

Now that is going to be proper lush.

# I wish it was Christmas today

# I wish it was Christmas today

# I wish it was I wish it was... #

To go with my orange cake, I have

a tub of the best vanilla ice cream that you can get your hands on

and a Christmas pudding.

Any Christmas pudding will do, just crumble it into a bowl

and scoop out the softened ice cream on top.

You need to work quite quickly

so that the ice cream doesn't melt all the way through.

Now, this ends up tasting like the most luxurious,

fruity ice cream.

And for everybody who says they don't like Christmas pudding,

they haven't tried this yet.

Look at that, looks amazing.

And then back into the freezer to set up.

Make sure the ice cream stays semi-frozen

and put it straight back in the freezer once it's mixed together.

That looks like the best orange cake ever in the world ever.

Freshly baked biscuit and orange smell, rock and roll.

It's proper Christmassy served with a tangy plum sauce.

And then finally, the Christmas pudding ice cream.

That is three of the best Christmas flavours ever,

all come together to make one festive dessert,

perfect for Christmas Day.

I'm all prepped and ready for a right good knees-up,

and who better to treat than my awesome staff from the pub?

Merry Christmas, come on in.

ALL: Woo!

Thank you very much, guys, for all your hard work this year.

ALL: Cheers.

Christmas is about getting together with friends and family,

having a proper party...

-Happy Christmas!

-Yay!

-Woo!

..and indulging in everything you love.

This is my version of the ultimate Christmas turkey roll.

Bread sauce to go with the turkey,

beautiful carrots, there we are. Some honey roast bacon.

ALL: Ooooh!

I hope that this year, with my simple festive tips, your Christmas

dinner will be one that you and your family will never forget.

Woo!

Merry Christmas, you lot.

# Just hear those sleigh bells jinglin'

-# Ring, ting-a-lingin', too

-Ring-a-ling-a-ling, ding-dong-ding

# Come on, it's lovely weather For a sleigh ride together with you

# Ring-a-ling-a-ling, ding-dong-ding

# Outside the snow is fallin' And friends are callin' yoo-hoo

# Ring-a-ling-a-ling, ding-dong-ding

# Come on, it's lovely weather For a sleigh ride together with you

# Ring-a-ling-a-ling, ding-dong-ding

# Ring-a-ling-a-ling Ding-dong-ding #