"OK, here we are, the big deal - Mr Turkey," kicks off Jamie as he rustles up a flavoured butter with thyme, nutmeg, pepper, butter, sage and chopped cranberries to slide inside the skin. Instead of blocking up the main cavity with stuffing and interfering with the balance of heat Jamie throws in a few clementines. "Add a bit of Christmas," he beams.
So you've got Christmas dinner planned but what about all the other festive feasts? Porridge is it? Beans on toast? Bo-ring. Bring on some Oliver magic. "Today we're doing brunches, lunches, snacks all the things in between the big hero dishes," says Jamie. From breakfast to bedtime, Jamie's got tons of ideas. From pancakes to carpaccio, from gammon to kedgeree, Oliver's got us covered.
"We are going to do the best roast potatoes ever," promises Jamie, who has a trick up his sleeve. For Jamie the perfect roast potato is the Maris Piper, but he admits you can go three ways when it comes to the fat; olive oil, butter or goose fat. After cutting his spuds into the size of 2 squash balls and washing the starch off in cold water, Jamie then puts them in a pot of cold water, seasons them and par-boils them for 10 minutes, to give them the beginning of that 'fuffy inside'. Jamie then separates the potatoes into three different containers (one using each type of fat) and roasts them all for 30 minutes. Then comes the magic; he takes them out and gives his three trays of spuds a good squash with the masher to increase the surface area of spud on pan. "Is it a palava?" asks Jamie. "When it comes to a roast potato you don't want to muck about." He then adds a trio of herb mixes: With the olive oil potatoes: Rosemary, olive oil, vinegar and garlic. With the goose fat potatoes: Thyme, garlic, bay, olive oil and vinegar. With the butter potatoes: Sage, garlic, clementine, olive oil. Then he roasts them all again for 25-30 minutes or 'until perfect to your eye'. All three trays look and taste delicious but the Oliver household are opting for the butter. "That is the perfect roast potato," Jamie beams.
"Today is all about desserts," says Jamie, "gorgeous gooey deserts that you can do in advance or stuff you can do at Christmas time that's nice and quick." Jamie is making like Frosty in the freezer with pretty ice cream desserts and getting jiggly with a festive fruity jelly. As if that wasn't enough to keep you sweet, he's even got a tasty way to use up leftover Christmas pud.
Chef Jamie Oliver offers stress-free tips on how to prepare food in advance or snacks that guests can make themselves during a party, including chicken liver parfait, a cheese fondue and squash soup served in a hollow pumpkin. He also demonstrates how to make pomegranate shots and mulled cider. Last in the series
