00:00How can we have a stress-free Christmas?
00:03Well, okay, there's no such thing as a stress-free Christmas, first of all.
00:09But what we can do is we can kind of get organised and plan ahead
00:13so we reduce the stress as much as possible
00:16and give you more time to chill out, relax, look like you've got it down
00:20and spend more time with your friends and family.
00:23I like to organise the Christmas from, you know, work backwards in time.
00:27So from the moment that you're eating your Christmas meal,
00:30go backwards to, you know, how long you rest the turkey for
00:33and that golden hour or two when you're doing your roasties and all the veggies,
00:37right back even to the day before when you're prepping and even the week before.
00:41And then that way you've kind of got your mission control down.
00:44I always do it on a chalkboard.
00:46So I've got a little chalkboard that I just put all the things on, a little timeline.
00:50It's a bit geeky, but it works.
00:53The fundamentals of the best roast dinner or Christmas dinner ever
00:56are three things only.
00:57Great meat, beautiful gravy and the best roast potatoes.
01:02If you get those three, the holy trini, if you get that,
01:05then everything else is just icing, do you know what I mean?
01:08It's just extra.
01:09If you follow the recipe that I've given for gravy,
01:14which is about the trivet, it's about the pan juices,
01:17you know, we've got potato masher going through the onions and carrots
01:20and a bit of jam and a bit of booze
01:22and then a bit of flour and a bit of water and a little simmer up.
01:26And, you know, it's kind of like, it's almost like a stew.
01:28It's almost like soup.
01:29And actually, one of my wife's favourite things in the world is gravy.
01:34And if she was allowed, she would, she wouldn't mind me saying this,
01:37she would eat it with this.
01:40I personally try and peel them, but I don't make them too small, right?
01:44So keep them kind of like cricket ball size, right?
01:47Fairly big, okay?
01:48We put them in a big pan, we parboil them in salted boiling water
01:51for around about 16 to 20 minutes, right?
01:55But when they're getting soft, you put a knife through it, you can check.
01:59Then we drain them into a colander.
02:01Then we leave them for two minutes.
02:03It's really important that the extra water sort of like steams and evaporates away.
02:08Then you give it a little tossing action.
02:10That's called chuffing up.
02:11I made that up, but just go with it.
02:13So what happens is the starch on the outside of the potatoes just kind of like gets a bit like
02:18it's been sandblasted.
02:19So what you're creating, starchy surface area, which means equals more crispiness.
02:25Bonus.
02:26Fluffiness on the inside, parboil, and crispiness on the outside, chuff up, roast up.
02:31So then we go into a tray, and you've got to choose your fat.
02:34So my standard good is like nice olive oil and butter.
02:39But you could use olive oil, you could use butter,
02:41you could use rendered fat from any roasted joints of meat.
02:45Your turkey fat that's roasting is probably the most delicious thing that you could do.
02:49Get something flat.
02:51You could use a potato masher if you want, or a fish slice.
02:54And then go, you only want one layer of potatoes, right?
02:58And then just lightly squash them.
03:01And then what you create is more surface area,
03:03and a little puffage of fluffy potato at the side.
03:07Right, okay.
03:08Don't judge me.
03:09Puffage.
03:09Puffage, these are all technical terms that I'm giving to the hello viewer, right?
03:15Remember that one.
03:16Listen, just remember, you don't have to like me to take this recipe and blow your friends and family away,
03:22okay?
03:23Don't worry about the chuffing and the puffage.
03:25We're talking about mega roast potatoes here.
03:26But that light pressing and then back in the oven for like 10, 15 minutes makes a roast potato that's
03:35so good that you could put it on a plate in a mission-style restaurant and you can blow people
03:40away.
03:41Pucker.
03:42I haven't said pucker for about 15 years, but thank you.
03:47There we go.
03:48Put love and care into things, like make your own pastry, but you don't have to do it the week
03:52before Christmas, you can do it a month before Christmas.
03:54Use your freezer.
03:55Your freezer is absolutely your best friend.
03:58Have fun.
03:58We've got some beautiful booze here.
04:01You literally just put water and stuff any foliage you've got to get your hands in, like orange, cranberries, star
04:07anise, cinnamon sticks.
04:09Look, it's kind of completely cheesy, I admit, but Christmas is cheesy.
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