Christmas Can Do Home Comforts at Christmas

'The heart of my home is the kitchen.

'And at this time of the year,

'it's the perfect place to gather and celebrate the festive season.'

Cheers, everybody.

'For me,

'Christmas is all about rustling up some fantastic food,

'and eating it in the company of my favourite people.'

'These are the dishes that I cook,

'when I want to spread a little bit of cheer.'

LAUGHTER

These are my Christmas home comforts.

'Christmas can be an intimidating time of year

'for the less-confident cook.'

There's so much pressure to deliver.

But I've got a bunch of great recipes

that are perfect for people who want to create fantastic food

this festive season, with absolutely no fuss.

So, today, I'm making a sumptuous retro supper,

ideal for Christmas Eve.

Who'd have thought macaroni cheese could taste this good?

Our festive food reporter, Annie Grey, gets high...

on cake.

This is the first time a glacier snow cake

has been made at 3,440 metres.

Welcome to the kitchen.

'And TV presenter Helen Skelton gives me a bit of a grilling.'

-Butter?

-With your fingers?

-It's my kitchen.

-Yeah.

But I'm kicking off with the ideal Christmas starter,

'a dish that you can prepare well in advance.'

It's a real winter warmer.

It's super-simple to make

and it comes with my very own special curry twist.

Now, for the inexperienced cook,

there's no better place to start in a kitchen than making a soup,

and you really can do some amazing soups with just simple ingredients.

Now, I'm going to do a cauliflower soup with onion,

touch of curry powder, and a little bit of veg stock and some milk.

And then for this, really, all we do is prepare our cauliflower.

'But before cooking it,

'I have to chop it up, roughly, stalks and all.

'I'm also chopping an onion,

'which needs to be gently fried in a pan with some oil.'

Now, while they soften,

we can then add a bit of this stuff, this is curry powder.

Now, for this you want the mild curry powder,

so you just take a touch of the curry powder

and we mix this together with water.

So, the onions are nearly there, we can throw in our cauliflower now.

And then you can pop... some of this curry powder in.

'The key to making this soup silky smooth

'is to add 500ml of milk,

'and the same amount of veg stock to the pan.

'Bring it to the boil, reduce to a simmer,

'and leave for about 15 minutes.

'More than enough time to cook the perfect partner for this soup,

'poached eggs.'

So, the first thing we need is a deep pan of water,

and then what we're going to do is add

about two tablespoons of vinegar.

Now, I use white wine vinegar,

rather than sort of a strong malt vinegar,

otherwise it tends to taint the flavour of the egg.

'And the best thing about these poached eggs

'is you can make them well ahead of time.'

Now, this is a trick that I learnt while training,

is to make the eggs and put them into ice cold water,

and it's a trick that can be used at home.

It's such a simple way of actually doing this.

'For the perfect poached egg, make sure the water is boiling.

'Crack a fresh egg into a pot,

'whisk the water to create a mini whirlpool,

'and then add the egg into the centre.'

So, these can be done two days in advance

and especially if you've got lots of people round for breakfast,

this is a great way to serve breakfast for mass numbers.

'After a minute and a half,

'the white should be firm and the yolk runny.

'So, plonk the egg into iced water to make sure it doesn't over-cook,

'and then repeat the process.

'You'll need two for every bowl of soup.'

And then what we can do is take these eggs...in the ice

and pop them in the fridge.

And these can stay in there for about 48 hours until we need them.

'For a simple and tasty topping, it has to be croutons.

'So, chop up some good quality, day-old white bread,

'leaving the crusts on, and gently fry for two minutes.'

So, when your croutons are ready, just on a bit of kitchen paper

tip them out,

this just gets rid of any excess oil in there,

and now the 15 minutes is up,

we're now ready to blitz our soup.

'For a really smooth liquid, divide it into three batches,

'then pass them through a blender for two to three minutes each time.'

What you end up with is a delicious silky soup, like that.

Now that's the milk that you've cooked the veg in.

You see, just from one cauliflower,

how much soup you get out of it as well.

'Season with salt and pepper,

'and add a squeeze of lemon juice to lift all those rich flavours.'

And then, really, we're ready to serve.

Your soup can be just kept warm.

You can allow this to cool right down, you can even freeze this

and defrost it and bring it back up to temperature.

'When it's time to serve this luxurious starter,

'revive the eggs in boiling water for just 20 seconds,

'then add them to the soup.

'Top with the croutons...

'..add a little coriander cress and that really is it!'

And then, because you now can cook,

a little cheffy drizzle of oil. And there you have it -

a simple yet delicious and tasty cauliflower soup.

This is a cracking dish for Christmas Day lunch.

Because, remember, all of this can be made about 48 hours in advance.

It's a good dish, that.

'It also proves that soups don't have to be boring.

'The crunchy topping and cleverly concealed poached eggs make this

'the perfect curtain-raiser for your celebrations.'

Mind you, no-one celebrates Christmas

quite like the Scandinavians.

And with more than 150,000 of them living in London alone,

their festive food is gaining popularity over here too.

Bronte Aurell has brought her family's Danish yuletide traditions

to her new London home.

Today, she's preparing for one of the biggest events

in the Scandinavian Christmas calendar.

I am baking traditional saffron buns called lussekatter.

We're doing this, because it's the feast of St Lucia

on the 13th of December. A traditional St Lucia festival,

er, you have a lot of choirs across towns and cities in Scandinavia.

Tonight, we're going to have a choir at the Swedish church,

and, at the front of the choir, there'll be a Lucia bride -

a girl usually dressed in white with real candles in her hair.

The festival is important,

because, back in the day, in the old calendar,

this was traditionally the darkest night of the year

and it was also the night where people believed

that the evil spirits could roam.

Well, December 13th may mean evil spirits,

but it also means heavenly food.

To make her lussekatter, Bronte dissolves yeast in lukewarm milk

and then sprinkles some caster sugar.

While we're waiting for the sugar to dissolve,

we can add the saffron flavour and colour.

The colour, that is traditionally the colour to ward off evil spirits

and ward off the Devil.

To this potent mixture

she adds melted butter, flour, yoghurt and a whole egg.

The dough mixture is now ready to be rolled out.

You want to have quite an even roll on this.

And then you twist it from different ways

into the traditional S shape, like this.

This shape is actually a really old Nordic shape.

The S shape is the most traditional bun - dates to pre-Christian times.

So that is, er, that's why the Lucia buns have that shape.

The final thing we do with the Lucia buns before they go into the oven

is that we put a little raison in each end.

The buns need 20 minutes baking,

so there's time for Bronte and her daughters

to make a second Scandinavian delicacy.

-Right, so...let's have a little bit of dough.

-I'm making pepparkakor!

-It's, er, like a ginger biscuit.

-A type of ginger biscuit!

-Where do pepparkakors come from?

-Scandinavia!

We're going to make 60 or 70 biscuits -

that's quite a lot, isn't it?

I might want to eat a few hundred myself, though.

-This really smells of gingerbread.

-Yeah!

-And cinnamon, and Christmas.

When the whole house fills with the smell of the Lucia buns

and ginger biscuits that have just been baked,

that signifies Christmas is here.

Christmas is the most important thing to all Scandinavians.

That's the most important time of the year to us.

It takes us straight back to home,

straight back to our mother's kitchens,

and straight back to snow-clad landscapes and log fires.

The baking for tonight's celebration complete...

-ALL: Skal!

-Cheers!

-Skal!

..Bronte invites friends and family

to share one more old-style Scandi favourite.

'A smorgasbord actually means a laid out table

'and everybody sits around and makes their own little open sandwiches.

'It can take up to...

'Well, a big smorgasbord can take up to five or six hours,'

where you sit and you start off with a herring, drink a few shots

of aquavit to warm yourself up for the rest of the meal,

take a break, then have some different kinds of fish,

different kinds of salads, pates and then your warm meats.

But what brings it all together is that it's all about

sharing time with the people you love, and we share Christmas

and the Christmas spirit that way. It's wonderful.

But they haven't got six hours to share this smorgasbord.

It's nearly time for church, and that St Lucia celebration.

# Sankta Lucia

# Ljusklara hagring

# Drommar med vingesus

# Under oss sia

# Tand dina vita ljus

# Sankta Lucia. #

This religious celebration, and the food that goes with it,

provides all the congregation with a festive reminder of home.

The taste and the smell and the eating the buns, er...

well, yes, they do bring me back to childhood memories

and I think it does for most... most Swedish people,

because you had them at school, you had them at home with your family,

and the smell you can smell now it's Christmas time soon, so...

it gives you that feeling.

BUZZ OF CONVERSATION

'Doing a Christmas the Scandinavian way is really, really simple,

'and it's just about having really good produce,'

simply prepared, um, getting some friends together

and enjoying good food, with love from Scandinavia.

So, you can find sticky treats wherever you go at Christmas time,

which is fine by me, because I love them.

'It's hard to get away from these things too.

'So, why not use them to make a couple of sweet desserts?'

Now, when you think of cooking a dessert for Christmas,

you really want something simple that's full of flavour

and there's nothing better than a bowl of these - clementines.

So what I'm going to do is I'm going to make two really simple desserts

using these, one of which is a classic syllabub,

and the other one is based on a classic crepe suzette,

both of which are really simple to make.

'First up, the syllabub.

'Mix icing sugar and mascarpone cheese together in a bowl.

'Then whisk in 200ml of double cream, little by little.'

It's one of the easiest desserts I think you'll make

and one of the great desserts for Christmas as well,

because you can make it in literally five minutes.

It's nearly there now. You can see the texture changes.

It almost resembles sort of half-whipped cream.

That's what we're looking for.

'For a really festive flavour,

'add some orange curd and the juice of one clementine.'

You just carefully fold it in, almost like a raspberry ripple,

but with clementines and orange.

You can have a quick taste.

It's really good, that.

Now, to put it into the glasses, you use a piping bag.

If not, you can just use a spoon and dollop it in.

'For this, no nozzle is required.

'Just cut a big hole in the bottom,

'and fill the glasses with the mixture.'

And this is what I love about this dish -

you can make this two, three, four days in advance,

have them in the fridge,

and you can see the texture already is just exactly how you want it.

You've got this amazing syllabub.

'To decorate, slice some clementine...

'..and add sprigs of mint.

'And while they're chilling away in the fridge,

'it's time for some French inspiration.'

Now another dessert that I wanted to show you,

one that's equally quick and simple, is, of course, pancakes.

'Or "crepes", as they say across the Channel.

'Whisk together 125g of plain flour, one egg and 300ml of milk.

'Add a knob of butter to a heavy-based non-stick pan,

'and prepare some greaseproof paper for when they're done.

'Add a little of the mixture into a hot pan

'and, hopefully, it won't stick.'

This is why you cook it in butter and not oil.

The pancake's not in the pan for very long...

PAN RATTLES

..and the butter will give it a nice colour.

Practice.

'Repeat the process until you have enough for you,

'your friends and family.

'Oh, and Santa too, if he stops by.'

And you don't normally associate pancakes with Christmas,

but I certainly do,

because my mother used to make these and freeze them.

She used to take them out of the freezer on Boxing Day,

just let them defrost and actually fold them over

and make a nice little sauce, so often just with

a little bit of honey and a bit of sugar sprinkled over the top.

It's a great go-to dessert, this.

'But these days, I prefer something a bit more grown-up on my pancakes -

'my take on a classic French suzette sauce.'

Now, this would be so often done with orange,

but we're going to use the zest of the clementines as well,

together with the segments.

'Start by caramelising caster sugar in a non-stick pan.

'Add brandy and, if you're confident you won't set fire to your eyebrows,

'flambe to burn off the alcohol.

'Then add lemon and clementine juice,

'along with those segments and zest.

'But there's one final ingredient

'that really holds this sauce together.'

See, this is where it all went wrong...

or all started.

Throw the butter in, keep it on the heat.

'And while the butter does its stuff,

'fold the pancakes into quarters,

'ready to be doused in this rich sauce.'

And then pour this over the top of the pancakes.

'Now, you could serve this with vanilla ice cream,

'but why would you do that

'when you have a syllabub waiting in the fridge?'

This is delicious.

It's full of flavour!

So simple to make!

It's a great dessert to have up your sleeve

or have in the back of the fridge.

Fantastic! And then, of course, you've got your pancakes.

See, dishes like this are just the essence of Christmas.

It's a good dish, that.

'Even if I do say so myself!

'A clementine syllabub, with no-nonsense pancakes

'and a show-off sauce - enough to bring yuletide cheer to any table.'

I'm always singing the praises of modern, straightforward recipes.

But nothing could be easier

than some of the festive foods championed by the Victorians.

Food historian Ivan Day is

going to recreate a memorable meal from the period.

It featured in one of the most famous

Christmas stories ever written - A Christmas Carol.

Charles Dickens sets a scene

which has inspired Christmas dinners across the land -

the Cratchit family's roast goose with roast potatoes and apple sauce.

The fire needs to be red hot to roast the goose,

so Ivan's going to start by making the trimmings.

This stuffing recipe is from a really important book called

A Shilling Cookery Book For The People.

The author was a famous chef called Alexis Soyer

and he aimed the recipes

at people who were living off a very low income.

In A Christmas Carol, Bob Cratchit earns 15 shillings a week,

the equivalent of £72 in modern money.

Well, he did have Scrooge as a boss!

So, Cratchit had to make his meal with very affordable ingredients.

For the stuffing, fresh sage is added to the breadcrumbs,

and then something a bit more surprising - beetroot.

I'm not going to chop them too small,

cos I think they'll be really nice in big chunks.

Softened onions and a little sugar go in next,

and it's all bound together with an egg yolk and some seasoning.

And I'm not sure how the Cratchits' liked their pepper,

but I know what I like.

I like mine nice and coarse.

Then it's stirred together,

the bird's stuffed and hung by the fire.

Poorer Victorian families didn't have ovens,

so they'd often ask the local baker to cook their meat for them.

But an ingenious device changed all that.

This gadget is called a bottle jack,

and it enabled fairly poor people to enjoy a roast goose

every Christmas in front of their quite small domestic fireplaces.

This is a type of English cookery that has entirely disappeared -

roast meat.

In order for meat to be roasted, it has to be rotated

in front of a fire, and certainly not in an oven - that's baked meat.

This goose will cook in about an hour-and-a-half.

And during that time, Ivan can cook the perfect companion -

potatoes roasted in the dripping from the bird.

Goose is such a fat bird that I don't need to add any more fat

to these potatoes to get them to roast.

A goose provided a hearty Christmas meal

for the hardworking Victorians, and much more besides.

Every last bit of the bird was put to good use

by the families who had space to keep them.

Cottages often ran a lag of geese to provide meat for the table,

grease for medicine, and feathers for arrows or pens.

Charles Dickens probably penned A Christmas Carol with a goose quill,

which would have also been an essential piece of office equipment

for his poor overworked clerk, Bob Cratchit.

While Ivan's roast lunch is finishing off,

here's a reminder of the Cratchit family's excited reaction

to their Christmas feast.

"Bob said he didn't believe there ever was such a goose cooked.

"Its tenderness and flavour, size and cheapness

"were the themes of universal admiration.

"And the youngest Cratchits in particular

"were steeped in sage and onion to the eyebrows."

Sounds like my kind of roast, but how's Ivan's turned out?

My goose is cooked to kind of mahogany perfection.

So I'm going to slice a little bit of breast meat off,

let's just cut that off there.

What I really like about this particular variation

on the Cratchit Christmas dinner

is this wonderful Alexis Soyer beetroot stuffing,

which really makes it sparkle.

A few potatoes, and then, last but not least, some apple sauce.

So, there we have it,

a perfect Dickensian Christmas dinner, cooked to perfection.

A meal like this was a rarity for the poor,

and as Tiny Tim tucked into

the best meal he'd eaten since last Christmas,

it is understandable that he would say,

"God bless us, every one!"

The night before Christmas can be one of the busiest of the year.

There's just so much to think about.

Cooking a complicated supper is the last thing you need.

Instead, you want something fast and familiar, like this.

Now, if there's one dish that's had a bit of a renaissance recently,

it's mac and cheese, and this is my version of it.

It's quick, simple, easy to prepare, full of flavour

and tastes fantastic.

It's perfect for the run-up to Christmas.

First of all, we're going to cook our macaroni.

For that you need salted boiling water,

a bit of macaroni. Make sure you've got plenty of water as well.

Now, this will take about maybe eight to ten minutes to cook.

Follow the instructions on the back of the packet, really.

That gives me the chance to make the sauce.

I start by melting some butter in a warm pan, and stir in some flour.

Then add 500ml of milk, whisking constantly to prevent lumps.

Now, what you end up with is a lovely rich sauce.

And a little hint of nutmeg.

Now, this is a great thing you can get on your Christmas list,

a little grater.

Then we can turn our attention to the cheese.

Whatever cheese you've got, really.

It's kind of the stuff that you use a leftover cheeseboard.

This gorgonzola dolce -

which is that combination of mascarpone cheese and gorgonzola -

we throw a little bit of that in.

You've got some Cheddar cheese, you can put this into chunks.

This is where you can transform the everyday macaroni cheese

that we used to have as a kid into something really special

by the combination of different types of cheeses.

So we've got a Caerphilly cheese,

which you can dissolve into it as well.

And finally, I'm adding Parmesan,

but you can add whatever you happen to have in.

And the flavouring that I'm going to add as well

is just a tiny bit of mustard, but I'm going to use some grain mustard,

and whisk that together.

Season with salt and pepper

and taste to see if the sauce is cheesy enough.

Do you know what? That's not bad, actually.

And then add my secret ingredient.

You've got to have this next thing in macaroni cheese.

It shouldn't be just cheese and pasta.

I know that'll please a lot of people.

But for me, it's all about this - pancetta,

this wonderful ingredient.

It's cured Italian belly pork, it's wonderful,

and if we chop it up into pieces...

You can actually buy this stuff as lardons now as well,

but I'm going to fry it up so it's crispy.

So you get different types of flavours in every single bite.

Tiny bit of oil...

and we throw in a little bit of pancetta.

Now, this is a dish that everybody wants, really, at Christmas.

It's quick, simple to prepare,

you can actually put it in the fridge and reheat it.

So it makes for the perfect dish, really,

whether you're doing this for a dinner party

and you want to surprise them with something slightly different,

or using leftovers as well,

everybody's got leftovers on the cheeseboard,

you're wondering what to do with it,

gets to Boxing Day, after Christmas, you want a quick snack,

something like that for the kids,

this is the perfect way to incorporate everything together.

By the time the pancetta's ready, the macaroni should be too.

So take them both off the heat and drain the pasta,

and then pour it back into the pan.

So now we're more or less ready, really. Switch off the heat.

We've got this fantastic sauce that I can pour into it as well.

Stir all this lot in, so we want to coat all that macaroni

in the sauce...

..and then we can take some of this crispy pancetta.

Now, I know a lot of people would drain off the fat -

you're fools! That's all flavour in there!

Mix that together.

Ha-ha!

You see, now we're talking.

Cheese starts to melt, those chunks of cheese in there.

Chuck it on our dish, like that.

But then, what I like to do,

something a little bit more special,

you take some mozzarella cheese over the top...

..a nice bit of breadcrumbs.

So I'm going to pop this straight under the grill

for about three or four minutes.

And while that's finishing off,

I'm going to make a fresh and speedy salad.

A simple grain-mustard dressing

is great over cheese-topped cos lettuce.

Perfect with that hot mac and cheese.

Oh, ho, ho, look at that.

Now, me, personally, I would just put a touch of basil on it.

I'm basically just going to dive straight in and have a taste.

Now macaroni cheese...

..has been around for years.

I'm a '70s child, and this was the staple back then,

but if it tasted like this - sorry, Mother -

I'd be the size of a house.

Some people think I am.

It's an optical illusion.

It's just your TVs are getting bigger.

Well, that's my excuse, anyway.

So, there you have it -

a delicious, comforting, savoury supper for Christmas Eve.

Make this,

and you'll never have to throw away your leftover cheese again.

During the holidays, British homes are packed with treats.

But even our famous love of sugar

is nothing compared to that of the Austrians.

They adore all things sweet, which is why

we sent our festive food reporter, Annie Gray, over for a visit.

Austria's long-standing love affair with cakes and baking

really comes into its own at Christmas.

I've spent the last few months travelling all over the country,

meeting the artisans and producers

who've helped to make it the capital of Christmas food.

And this is undoubtedly the high point of my journey.

I am here on the Pitztal Glacier in Austria to meet Norbert Santeler,

a man who bakes cakes to thrill, no matter what the chill.

For the past 33 years, patissier Norbert has been baking cakes

and strudels halfway up this mountain.

Working at this altitude isn't easy,

because the thin air affects the dough and cooking time.

And today, Norbert definitely needs some outside assistance.

Hi, Annie. Hilf mir. Bitte!

SHE SIGHS

That's because he intends to bake a cake 650 metres further up,

right at the glacier's summit.

-OK.

-Das ist so schon.

I've just seen this side. Wow!

So beautiful, yeah.

'Norbert's agreed to teach me how to make

'his version of a traditional Austrian Christmas cake.'

This is quite special. I don't think you can really beat this, can you?

All this snow - it's like Christmas has come early.

Together, we'll attempt to make his cake

just outside Austria's highest cafe.

OK.

HE SPEAKS IN GERMAN

So we're making glacier snow cake at 3,440 metres. Wow.

Do I get a hat like yours?

HE REPLIES IN GERMAN

OK.

-OK?

-Ja.

OK, perfect, super.

OK.

So what we've got here is sour cream with sugar in,

and some coconut syrup, and gelatine to go into it to make it set.

Obviously, at these temperatures,

there are some issues with using gelatine

because it starts to set straightaway.

You can really smell the coconut coming off this.

It's quite a different smell to what you'd expect from English cakes.

I think this is going to be a real Christmas treat.

This is whipped cream going into the mixture.

OK, stop.

-Stop?

-Stop, yes.

It's a really simple thing to make,

perfect for the novice cook,

and although it's slightly more challenging up here at 3,500 metres,

I would say it's a pretty good dish to start with

if you're not particularly confident,

or if you're on top of a glacier.

'The recipe's simple, but keeping warm is a challenge,

'so Norbert, ever the gent, is letting me take over.

'To help my circulation, obviously.'

Really, this is just layers, so there's cake at the bottom,

standard sponge cake, then my cream mixture.

Some of these lady fingers, or boudoir biscuits,

call them what you will, on top,

and then pineapple round the edge,

a sort of coconut, pineapple, cream cake. Wow.

The other really good thing about this cake of course

is that you can make it in advance

so it makes your Christmas Day really simple

as well as the cake itself.

Last thing to do - put the final layer of my sour cream mix on top,

and this is actually setting as I do this, it's so cold.

If you don't have a glacier at home, you can probably use a fridge,

but here, there's absolutely no need for one.

All that's left now is some fresh snow.

So we're using desiccated coconut

to give it that really snowy, Christmassy feel.

-Super.

-Vielen Danke.

-Bitte schon.

This is the first time a glacier snow cake

has been made at 3,440 metres, and I made it.

Wow! Austria has so much cake, and I have so little time.

It's going to have to be the one I helped to make,

though, isn't it, really, my very own glacier snow cake.

Right...

Danke.

I've got my Austrian Christmas cake and a glass of cherry punch,

and I have to say I'm starting to feel really Christmassy.

But the proof of the pudding is always in tasting.

Oh, yes! Wow!

If you told me that had booze in, I'd believe you.

The sour cream really cuts through any of the richness in the cake.

This would be absolutely perfect after a big Christmas dinner,

and it's so simple, I can barely believe it.

Classic, simple Christmas. Easy.

Well, Annie, Christmas SHOULD be easy, and relaxing too.

But when you've got an old friend coming for dinner,

there's no time to rest,

especially when your guest is as lively and energetic as this one.

-Hello!

-Helen, how are you? Are you all right?

-Good. Good to see you.

-Come on in.

'TV presenter Helen Skelton is known for taking on big challenges.

'Today, her mission is to help me prepare a sensational salmon dish.'

-Right, then, Helen, welcome to the kitchen.

-They look serious.

They look serious? Well, we've got a serious job to do, really,

but this is simple because...

I kind of know what you're like in the kitchen.

Terrible!

I want to be good in the kitchen.

You want to be good.

I always invite people over to our house,

we often end up with 10 or 12 people coming round.

We had 12 people over for Christmas last year, and I can't cook at all.

Right. Who did the cooking, then?

-My husband. I got sent out of the kitchen...

-OK.

-..on a long dog walk.

So, we're going to start off with a salmon pasty.

That's a massive fish, isn't it?

It's called a coulibiac.

Now, coulibiac's traditionally done with rice,

it's a very famous Russian dish,

but we're going to do it with just mushrooms and spinach, all right?

We're going to slice up the mushrooms first -

a very straightforward task, just to be on the safe side.

You see, my family get mad at me

because I do like to cook and I attempt to cook

but I don't believe in recipes, I think they're a bit...

That's where you're falling down, mainly, you see.

So what's the traditional go-to Helen dish, then?

-Chilli.

-Chilli?

Yeah, but that can be quite complicated to make.

You make that without a recipe?

Yeah, but, again, my friends laugh because I always say

"Come over, I'll cook a chilli,"

and then they come over and after about an hour of them being there,

they order a pizza

because I've burnt mince and got tomatoes everywhere and...

You see, that's why you need to follow a recipe.

'Well, today's recipe requires those mushrooms to be cooked.'

Now, whenever you're frying mushrooms - a very, very hot pan.

So a hot pan, butter...

With your fingers?

Yeah, it's my kitchen.

-Yeah.

-Right, in there, we throw the mushrooms in.

-What kind of mushrooms are these?

-These are enoki.

Enoki? I thought that was pasta.

No?!

Do I have to go back a different level?

We used to go and pick mushrooms from the fields.

Cos you were brought up on a farm, weren't you? Like myself.

Yeah, I was brought up in the middle of nowhere

and you can hit a golf ball off the back-door step.

You know, how sometimes if kids go in and their mums say,

"Oh, you're all mucky"? If we were head to toe in mud,

-my mum was happy because we'd had a good time.

-Right.

I was lucky because my dad was on the farm, so he was always there

so he could always build a den with us and run across the field with us

and all that kind of stuff so I feel lucky.

So what gave you the adventurous side, then?

Rowing down the Amazon and all that sort of stuff, why all that?

I think, James, it's a fine line between brave and stupid,

and if I'm completely honest, I never really thought it through.

When I went to the Amazon, I had no idea how big it was.

-Really?

-No.

'I won't laugh.

'I'm not exactly an expert on South American rivers myself.

'Anyway, back to the dish.

'The mushrooms have now softened, so I take them out of the pan

'and get ready to saute the second filling - spinach.'

Now, next time I come over to your house, I'm expecting this.

-Well, I...

-You can practise it over Christmas, can't you, on everybody?

Well, I'm going to have a new social circle over Christmas

-cos we're moving to France so...

-You're moving to France?

We are moving to France for my husband's work.

-The home of great cooking.

-Yeah!

He even said to me, "Don't start inviting everyone over

"and then offer them burnt chilli or a takeaway pizza,"

so I want to be able to go and cook something

so I don't embarrass myself.

'Once the spinach is sauteed,

'it all needs to go into the fridge to cool.'

So what was Christmas like growing up for you, then?

I'm really, really close to my family

and so Christmas was always a big deal for us.

My dad was always milking, so we used to wake up at four o'clock

and want to open our presents and you couldn't

because he wasn't in yet

so we had to wait until he'd finished milking.

I remember our mum holding us in the kitchen,

like trying to keep back greyhounds from the start of a race

because we were like, "The presents! Santa's been!"

But we had to wait until my dad came in, so she used to try and pacify us

with bits of melon on cocktails sticks.

'We can do better than that, I'm sure,

'as long as Helen's fish-filleting skills are up to scratch.'

You've got to keep the knife at about ten degrees, pointing down.

Just watch your fingers.

Tell you what, you've got the hang of this.

-I don't know what I was worried about.

-Ta-da!

-You ready?

So you're basically just putting the knife in

and keeping it close to the bone?

That's exactly what we're doing.

'Once the edges are trimmed,

'there's one very important task left

'to turn the salmon into a festive treat.'

I think in the run-up to Christmas you have so much turkey,

don't you, at Christmas dos and specials, when you're out -

that, Christmas week,

you need something a bit different, and fish is light, isn't it?

-It's perfect for you for Christmas in France, isn't it?

-And healthy.

-Are you ready for this next bit?

-Yep.

So you get a pair of pliers...

Oh, I wondered what they were for.

-Fish pliers. Now, if you run your finger along here...

-Mm-hm.

..you'll feel the bones.

Now watch, grab hold of the fish bone

-and pull it towards the head end.

-Ah.

-And they come out.

That's quite fun, isn't it?

You see, this is my kind of cooking.

It's like plucking your eyebrows.

-Oh, that one's buried. Oh!

-If you've got eyebrows this long,

you've got a big problem, haven't you, really?

'After every bone has been painstakingly removed,

'it's time to move on to the puff pastry.'

-You can buy this stuff already made.

-Yeah.

Now, what we've got to look at is the shape of the salmon here,

and what we're trying to create

-is two bits of pastry the same shape as the salmon.

-Yeah.

So what we're going to do is,

we're going to roll this out in one direction.

'When the pastry is the right thickness,

'layer up the fish for the filling.

'Season the salmon,

'add the mushrooms

'then the spinach.

'And get your assistant to roll out the second piece of pastry.'

-OK.

-Like that.

'Now, you might want to check that they're properly dressed first!'

These sleeves were very festive but a terrible idea, weren't they?

Which is harder, rowing the Amazon or this?

-I like cooking.

-Cos this looks harder.

Can I help with these sleeves, or something?

'Once the pastry is eventually rolled out,

'egg-wash the edges of the base

'and place the second fillet on top.

'Now all you need to do is add the lid,

'and make sure your sleeves stay out the way!'

That is like a piece of art.

'Then seal the pastry by squeezing the top and bottom layers together.'

As pasties go, this is quite a posh pasty, isn't it?

-It is a posh pasty. Good.

-OK.

-Right, we're nearly there. Eggwash.

-I'm impressed.

I'm just in awe of what we've already achieved here.

We're basically just going to make a pattern in the top -

one, two, three, four.

This could go wrong, couldn't it?

No. Just don't cut through the pastry, Helen,

-cos it'll all be ruined.

-Noted.

See, this is doable, innit? Look.

This is totally doable.

I'm excited because I think I could do this -

salmon - head, scale, bones.

Yeah, you can buy it already filleted, though.

No, I want to do it. I want to do the whole thing.

-You want to do it?

-Oh, yeah.

-OK.

-If you're going to do it, do it properly.

-And then hot oven.

OK. How hot's that? Does it matter?

-What, the oven?

-Yeah.

Does matter, otherwise you're eating sushi, yeah.

Does this specific temperature matter?

-Yes, Helen. Yes, it does matter.

-Right.

Because I always just turn my oven on to full,

because I think it'll be done quicker, and chuck it in.

I'm going to leave you to clean now.

And that's why I burn stuff.

I'm going to go get a drink.

I pushed him to the edge, and he jumped off all by himself.

I was certainly thinking about it.

Now, you don't need years of experience in the kitchen

to prepare a show-stopping Yuletide feast.

That's beautiful.

Have faith in what you can do, and you won't need to order a takeaway.

And they're probably not open on Christmas Day, anyway.

So, you reckon you're going to try this this Christmas, then,

over in France?

I'm definitely going to try it. That's delicious.

Sometimes, when I watch people eating food on TV,

and they say "Mmm, that's beautiful,"

I think they're lying. I'm not lying, this is stunning.

You can find all the recipes from the series on...

Eh!

Oh, that must have been your bit.

SHE LAUGHS

I told you to remove all the bones. What's that?

Um, we didn't have a Christmas pudding,

so it's the equivalent of finding the gold penny, and make a wish!