Are you one of those people who leaves Christmas until the last minute, running around like a maniac rushing to get everything in time for 25th? Does the thought of cooking for your friends and family in the coming festive season leave you with a foreboding sense of dread? Do you feel like you churn out the same old Christmas meal year after year? If so, you need to log onto to our webchat with top chef, Jason Atherton.

Wouldn't it be great if you could go somewhere and "do Christmas" all in one place? That's buy presents, order locally sourced produce, sample Michelin starred quality food for inspiration and learn gourmet secrets such as how to make your roast turkey moist and flavoursome, or the correct way to flambé your Christmas pudding? Well contrary to popular belief, this place exists. Gordon Ramsay presents Taste of Christmas is an exciting new food festival taking place at London's Excel from the 4th – 7th December. The live event which celebrates the best in Christmas food, drink and entertaining, will be an opportunity to dine at top London restaurants as well as try your hands at everything from expert wine tasting to hands-on cookery demonstrations.

To get the festivities started, we have one of Gordon Ramsay's Executive Chefs available to answer all your Christmas questions. Jason Atherton from Maze will equip you with the gastronomic know-how so that the cooking will be the least of your worries this Christmas.

As this is a live webchat you will be able to submit all your culinary questions in advance so why not log on and get in the Christmas spirit.

Jason Atherton joins us live online to discuss how you can have a delicious Christmas.

For more information and to buy tickets visit www.tasteofchristmas.com

H: Vicky Letch, host
J: Jason Atherton, chef

H: Hello and welcome to the Food and Drink Show, I’m Vicky Letch. Now then, does the thought of cooking for your friends and family in the coming festive season fill you with dread? Do you feel like you churn out the same old Christmas meal year after year? Well if that’s you you’ve come to the right place because today I’m joined by a top chef whose here to offer us some great gourmet secrets, and it’s Jason Atherton, hello, welcome to the show

J: Hello, thank you for having me

H: Well thank you for your time, you know you’re a busy man – we’ll talk about that in a second. Now when we talk about Christmas dinner, we think straight away, oh my goodness me, I’ve got to cook for the in-laws, there’s absolutely no room for error is there?

J: Well it depends how much you like your in-laws or not, I mean – you know

H: Not often that much!

J: No I mean obviously everybody’s under pressure for Christmas day because for two reasons, you’ve got the kids running around or family coming around or friends, you want to open presents, you want to spend time with them

H: Yes

J: You’re bogged down with cooking dinner so for my sort of tip to you is make it as simple as possible, I mean there’s sort of numerous ways you can do that by sort of pre-blanching all the vegetables which a lot of people don’t do, especially my parents, they sort of bore them – I think they get them on in November

H: Yes

J: Ready for December

H: Yes, I think my mum does that now and then yes. At 6.30 I think on Christmas Eve, I’ll just go and put the veggies on

J: I know exactly yes

H: Mum we’re not eating until 2 o’clock the next day! Interesting! So it’s all about timing, it’s all about just being very calm. I think you’ll probably agree it’s a massively pressured meal, it’s that one day of the year where dinner has got to be perfect, so you think preparation is key really?

J: Absolutely preparation is key, I mean for instance like people buy these huge turkeys which take so long to cook, and one of my sort of tips for that is if you actually get your butcher to take it off the bone, and then if you lay them on top of vegetables with some – a little bit of chicken stock, some herbs, some rosemary, some thyme, some garlic, cover it with tin foil and let it cook for about – that will take about an hour 45 minutes, and it takes off all that cooking time where people actually put it in the night before

H: Yes, yes

J: And it takes so long to cook that it’s so dry because it’s one of the least fatty meats that we cook with, so it’s so healthy for you and you cook it for so long that it’s so dry that you have to put so much gravy on it, it sort of counteracts what you’re trying to achieve, so by doing that, by cooking it off the bone it saves space in your oven, and also you keep it nice and moist

H: Brilliant. Now actually you’ve been a very clever boy, because we had a question in from – who was it, that was Jenny, Jenny thank you very much, I hope that’s answered your question, how do I cook a turkey without it drying out this year. So you think to get it deboned, is that the phrase?

J: Yes you sort of take it off the bone, I mean the other way of doing it also is if you want to keep it on the bone for whatever reason

H: Yes

J: You can just do exactly the same, leave it on the bone, don’t put any tin foil on it but just make sure you put chicken stock inside your vegetables or underneath the bird, so what that creates is like a moisture vacuum inside your oven, so that just keeps all the sort of moisture dropping back onto the bird to keep it nice and moist

H: Ok, brilliant. And Chrissie, I’ll do your question now because it’s all tying in nicely – what is the best type of turkey we can buy? So if we don’t want it dried out but we need to start with good meat –

J: Norfolk Black Legs

H: Norfolk Black legs

J: Legs – they’re the best ones, they have got a superior flavour, they’re a lot more expensive, they’re probably about 25% more expensive than your sort of standard, you know, supermarket turkey, but they’re a much higher quality, they’re guaranteed free range, they’ve had a good life until Christmas –

H: Until – until they’re on your plate

J: And they’ve just been fed well, so you know it’s just like eating corn fed chicken, they’ve got a real great flavour

H: Ok great. Now do you think we’ve moved away from the really traditional Christmas dinners, I mean back in the day it was really – your turkey, maybe a bit of cranberry sauce, your pigs in blankets – do you think people are being more inventive with their Christmas dinners these days?

J: Absolutely I think people sort of now, people even go as far as eating beef, goose and all sorts of different things on Christmas day which is sort of important because where has the tradition come from, people eat turkey fine, but there is other interesting stuff out there to eat, why not have a bit of pigeon?

H: Yes

J: Grouse, whatever

H: Ooh, I don’t know how I feel about that. Pigeon on my Christmas plate, I don’t know. If I’m going to consume my daily calorie intake in one meal, I don’t think wood pigeon’s going to be the way forward for me, but it might work for some of you, I don’t know. Now you are here because we want to find out about the Taste event or –

J: Taste of Christmas

H: Taste of Christmas festival at Excel

J: At the Excel centre yes, in the Docklands arena, so we’re basically putting on this year, people might recognise it as the Taste of London from the summer. Gordon Ramsey Holdings company has put on a Christmas event called the “Taste of Christmas” hosting by the man himself, Mr Gordon Ramsey

H: Love him. Quite scared of him, but love him

J: Yes me too! So you know we’re going to sort of host that. There’s all Gordon Ramsey chefs there –myself, Mark Sargeant, Angela Hartner, there’s also people like Michel Roux junior which people know from Masterchef

H: Yes

J: He’s going to be there. We’ve got Atul Kochhar my compatriot from Great British Menu, who I beat

H: Yes you did baby, brilliant

J: So he’s there, he’s going to be – and the idea of the event is to sort of bring Christmas under one roof, so it’s indoors and there’s – I think there’s something like 8, 9000 people per day going to be there

H: Wow

J: We have the Gordon Ramsey main theatre which seats 1000 people where they’ll see the man himself doing cook along live which is going to be great. Then we’ve got the sort of mini theatres round the outside which will host people like me, the Great British Menu team, Angela Hartlet, Mark Sargeant etc and we’ll be showing you Christmas tips, everything from you know the same questions we just talked about there, how not to sort of ruin your turkey dinner

H: Yes

J: Unusual Christmas treats, puddings, all sorts of stuff, so it’s going to be really interesting. Same time you can sort of do your Christmas shopping all in one go because you’re going to have Magimix there, you’re going to have wine merchants

H: Wow

J: You’re going to have a farmer’s market. So it’s going to be lots and lots of fun

H: Everything you could possibly need

J: For Christmas

H: Now to date – for Christmas, yes. Now to date of course Taste has been all about summer food is that correct?

J: Yes that’s right, yes yes

H: So what we’re going to do, we’ll show you a very very short film just to give you an idea of the atmosphere, but of course everything you see will be Christmassy this time round

J: Absolutely

H: So just take a look

Video Footage

H: Wow that looks absolutely incredible. I’ve got to say the atmosphere looks killer, but food really does bring people together like that doesn’t it?

J: The thing is, what brings us all together in life is the family meal, if we go out with friends and family for dinner it sort of just brings us all together, makes us sit at a table and actually converse, rather than have – sat in a movie where no one talks or go to a show where sort of, you don’t talk – you actually sit and have dinner, you actually talk and find out about each other’s days

H: Yes, yes

J: You get to know each other again, and just have some fun, and food’s about fun

H: Yes

J: And we’ve got to sort of make sure we inject that back in you know and you see there from Taste of London how much fun people are having, it’s great

H: Absolutely

J: People drink, they’re having – watch their sort of favourite chefs from the TV, have some fun, get signed books, you know whatever, it’s just great fun

H: It is a star-studded list with the chefs, it has to be said. Gordon Ramsey and his clan. We will be learning from the best. Will there be people there that we can talk to, can we have a one-on-one with anyone if we have any questions or –

J: Absolutely yes, I mean all the theatres are open for people to come down and meet the chefs afterwards and sort of ask tips, talk about the recipes, you know, just anything in general really, just talk about things in general, the food that they want to cook at Christmas, can they help them with it, any recipes, blah blah blah

H: I’d have gravy questions, I always struggle with my gravy – we’ll talk about that later! Question from Gloria, thank you very much Gloria. She says “what is it like working with Gordon Ramsey?” Yes, yes – I like the way he says yes all the time. “Does he swear as much as he swears on TV?” Yes yes?

J: Gordon Ramsey is a guy who has so much energy, it’s sort of – to work with him and not have that rub off on you is – would be criminal, so to answer the question is no he doesn’t shout at me, we’re business partners, I mean we’ve known Gordon for 14 years, so we sort of work in a close sort of environment together, so we work on new projects, on new restaurants, staff training, whatever. And so to answer your question, no he doesn’t swear at me but at the same time he’s a perfectionist and our restaurants are run to perfection, so at times yes, Gordon can lose his temper. But gladly it’s not projected at me

H: At you – yes. But because you’ve climbed the greasy pole now, you’re not down there

J: Absolutely

H: What is it, chef de partie?

J: Chef de partie and commis chef, gets the wrath of his carn

H: Yes but you see I’d lap it up, I’d go oh yes shout at me and then hold me Gordon! Lovely. So we know Gordon’s going to be there, there’s going to be lots of gourmet food – will you have a chance to taste all of this yummy food?

J: Yes absolutely, that’s the whole point, you know you’re coming down to taste Christmas, that’s the whole idea of the show, you –

H: Taste Christmas, I love that!

J: There you go. So you come down and you taste it all, you get to see what you need to see and by – you know taste some great food, drink some great wine and meet some celebrities

H: And what sort of things will you be bringing along to the festival with you?

J: I’m bringing my restaurant Maze, so we’ll be there for the three days and you can come and sort of experience a mini Maze, and along with other restaurants like Le Gavroche and Mirano and York and Albany and Boxwood, and the idea is that you – we do a starter, main course and desert, small portions and you get to taste what that restaurant is all about and they’ll be like –

H: Fantastic

J: Nice wintery, Christmassy stuff and any ideas we can give you for cooking at home and you know again we all do the signed cook book thing, so it’s going to be great

H: Sounds lovely, bring the cameras along people. Now there’s one thing that maybe people wouldn’t necessarily want to taste and that would be the Brussel sprouts –

J: Oh come on

H: It gets knocked. There’s a question from Jenny that says “why do we always eat Brussel sprouts at Christmas?” Because they’re lovely, I love them

J: We eat Brussel sprouts now, they’re on my menu

H: Yes. There you go, they’re on this man’s menu, that’s selling them –

J: Listen to this, let me sell you this dish, right – ok

H: Go

J: This is roasted haunch of Scottish venison from Balmoral estate with pumpkin spiced jam

H: Yes

J: Brussel sprout leaves

H: Yes

J: And chestnut puree

H: That sounds amazing

J: If you don’t want to eat that, then what’s wrong with you?

H: Yes but that is a world away from most people’s experiences of Brussels, let’s be honest! Overcooked, a little bit mushy –

J: Well let me give you a tip then for – this is for Brussels right, there’s two things – when you take your Brussel sprouts at home, prep them down, so prepare them, take the bottoms off where they’ve been growing, and just score them. Reason why you score them, so they cook in the centre more quickly. By score I mean cut a little cross shape at the bottom

H: Yes

J: Blanche them, so boiling salted water, in and out for like 30 seconds, so cook them into ice water, and then they stay bright green which automatically makes them – makes your mind say they’re more edible, because when you see a bright green vegetable –

H: Yes

J: It looks better than –

H: I agree, yes

J: Stodgy sort of yellow thing that Brussel sprouts go if you just cook them from scratch. Then when you reheat them, reheat them in a little bit of butter little bit of sugar and salt and some bay leaf

H: Right

J: And then when you heat them up, when you taste them they taste a million miles away from your mum’s sort of 3 day old Brussel sprouts I’ve been cooking on your stove top for a week scenario – and they’re great

H: That sounds amazing. See I could just see a bowl of those, a glass of red wine and I’m sold!

J: Yes

H: I’m such a cheap date Mary says “I’ll use the same bog standard sage and onion stuffing every year. I want to make it from scratch and make it exciting this year, what are your tips?”

J: It depends how far you want to push it. First thing I would do is sort of say ok the first thing you want to work out is the base, so you buy sausage meat. People always buy the base sausage meat, go with something a little bit more dramatic like when you go to your – your butcher, ask for like a Merguez sausage or something like that. So then you’ll take like a Merguez sausage, like a spicy, Spanish sausage

H: Yes

J: Which is quite red in colour, maybe chop up some red onion, maybe put some fresh cranberries in there, some thyme, rosemary, bay leaf, and you’ve got this beautiful, reddy looking sort of texture. Then stuff that inside the turkey

H: Ok

J: And then when it’s roasting, the actual start – the actual fat of what comes out the sausage meat, baste your turkey with that and as you’re basting your turkey, that is like to pour the fat back over it while it’s cooking, your turkey takes this sort of golden-reddy colour on, and it looks quite funky, yes

H: Wow, yes. Because we’ve –

J: You’ve got like a turkey dressed as Santa

H: Yes exactly, I was going to say! All those colours are exactly what you want to see at Christmas –

J: Yes that’s great

H: The reds and the greens

J: Yes it’s a bit funky, you know

H: Yes

J: Freaks your friends out because you’ve got a red turkey, but it’s ok

H: Bang on trend turkey, this man knows it all! Ok I’ve got a question here from Lena, thank you very much Leena, and Leena says “we celebrate Christmas on Christmas eve – what would you suggest preparing that is suitably Christmassy without being a turkey?”

J: Without being a turkey?

H: Yes

J: So – venison’s really good, we talked about venison, so venison’s really nice

H: Yes

J: What else would I do – duck, duck’s great

H: I like duck at Christmas yes

J: Yes I like duck too because you know what it’s not too heavy

H: Yes

J: It’s sort of quite a light meat, I know it’s sort of rich in texture but it’s quite a light meat unlike turkey – duck – but the best thing for duck if you are going to do duck is take the legs off and cook them separately because they take twice as long. The breast goes really dry

H: Right ok

J: So always take the legs off and I would confit the legs down in their own fat, so make some duck fat by confit – fat down off the legs. Cook them in there with a little bit of garlic, rosemary and thyme so they’re nice and tender, then you can reheat them by putting them back in the oven then they crisp up on their own,

H: Ooh lovely

J: And serve them at the side back on the breast, when you’ve roasted the breast like a normal breast

H: Ok

J: So that’s quite nice

H: Beautiful...and we’ve got a question from Brooklyn thank you very much he says I’m going to cook a turkey!

J: What for his dad David?

H: Good, I like it! Do you think wet or dry –

J: Steamed halibut for your mum young man!

H: Steamed – but – yes, if even that, who knows. And some steamed vegetables probably. “Do you think wet or dry” – what’s this word – brines- “are the best? Ok, also do you think it’s necessary to cook the leg separately? Have you ever deep fried a turkey? I hear it’s the best way”

J: Deep fry a turkey

H: I’ve never heard of such a thing

J: Where has that question come from?

H: Unless he’s got some colonel secret, you know- what, no? Deep fried turkey Jason?

J: No never never never

H: No don’t do it Brooklyn, I really don’t’ think you should ever do that

J: Don’t deep fry your turkey no – I mean unless it’s a turkey twizzle or something like that, that’s probably fine, but I wouldn’t deep fry a – and first of all where are you going to get a fat fryer big enough to get a turkey in it, that’s what I want to know!

H: Exactly, that’s what I would also like to know. Please, I beg of you don’t deep fry a turkey!

J: Nicely roasted Brooklyn, little bit of chicken stock in the bottom and your mum will be very pleased

H: Yes exactly. Ok Justin I’ve got to say thank you for your question, I was going to go there myself – “what is the perfect wine to accompany a roast turkey?”

J: You want something – you want something – there’s sort of two ways you can play it really, it all depends on your accompaniments. If you’re sort of going, you know real traditional route then a nice sort of Sauvignon Blanc or something like that, but for me because I just like – you’ve got so many flavours going on with the whole part of the meal, and you don’t want to get to the scenario when you’re having 3, 4 different types of wine, so I would go with something like a Riesling or a Guanstromino, the reason being is it’s got so much fruit and it’s got so much acidity that it sort of helps with the Christmas pudding, helps with things like- people always like smoked salmon, things to start with

H: Yes

J: So it always works really well so I sort of normally go for Riesling or something like that

H: Ok. I was just going to say about the pudding, because all the flavours are so rich and intense you don’t want to overdo it necessarily with the wine like you’re saying

J: That’s right

H: What about having a desert wine with your Christmas pud?

J: You can because again Christmas pudding is so heavy and it’s so sickly, and then you make the brandy cream and you know then you get a 5p stuck in your tooth, you know and it’s just sort of – I would sort of go with one wine throughout the meal, otherwise – desert wines are always so sickly, right?

H: Yes

J: maybe a port with some Stilton or something like that before, that’s fine, but I’d just stick to one wine, get a nice Riesling

H: And let’s just talk about puds momentarily – have you got any tips for a different way to go with your Christmas pudding?

J: Yes, I mean quite a fun and funky thing to do is when you steam your Christmas pudding, if you’ve got any leftover or even serve it on Christmas day, is break your Christmas pudding down, buy some really good quality vanilla ice cream. When you’re Christmas pudding is cold, fold it into your vanilla ice cream and then put it back in the fridge, and then just eat Christmas pudding ice cream. It’s great!

H: That sounds really good. Have you ever heard of anyone frying their Christmas pudding before?

J: I have yes, I’ve heard of people wrapping it in filo pastry and then frying it – that works because if you steam your Christmas pudding and then again break it down and mix it with some fruit or whatever. Buy the little filo pastry packets from the supermarket, brush them in clarified butter, roll them up, so make like almost little dim sum sort of parcels. Set them in the fridge for half an hour so they go cold, deep fry them and serve that with Christmas pudding ice cream, that’s great

H: That’s fancy, that would really impress the in-laws wouldn’t it?

J: Yes it would absolutely yes

H: Definitely. Jason thank you very much, I’ve certainly worked up an appetite after all of that. Now if you want to get your tickets in advance, make sure you go onto the website which is tasteofchristmas.com, and of course the event is running at Excel between the 4th and the 7th of December. I’ll see you next time

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