The Best Christmas Food Ever chefs Paul Ainsworth and Catherine Fulvio share festive recipes with Martine McCutcheon joining them as they prepare rib of beef and sticky toffee pudding
Already in a spin about the prospect of prepping festive food?
Fret no more.
Over the next two weeks, top chefs Paul Ainsworth and Catherine Fulvio are joined by a different celebrity each weekday to share their easy-to- follow recipes in The Best Christmas Food Ever.
First on the menu is brandy-cured salmon and rum, chocolate and marzipan truffles, while singer and actor Martine McCutcheon (picutred above with Paul and Catherine) drops in to chat about her own plans for Christmas and learn how to make the perfect Yorkshire puddings.
Guests later in the series include Christopher Biggins, Debbie McGee, Chris Bavin and Nina Wadia. Fun viewing with pots of inspiration.
TV Times rating: ****
In an exclusive interview with TV Times, Paul, 39, reveals what’s on the menu…
What’s your top advice for using up Christmas Day leftovers?
Everyone loves a Scotch egg, and whatever roast you have on Christmas Day this works. You cut up all the leftover roast potatoes, carrots, sprouts and cabbage really small then heat them up to bring them back to life. Use good sausage meat to bind them all together, wrap it round the egg, dip in breadcrumbs before frying, and you’ve got the perfect Scotch egg.
What’s your favourite Christmas Day food?
I’m really looking forward to cooking a turkey. I cook the legs separately to the breast. You can turn the turkey legs into proper old-fashioned turkey rolls by filling them with sausage meat, apricots, cranberries and pistachios, rolling them up in tinfoil and baking in an oven. Then you have the two breasts left on the crown, which can be cooked to perfection.
What are your earliest memories of Christmas food?
We never went to restaurants when I was young so I didn’t really know what a starter was, but on Christmas Day my mum would always make a smoked salmon starter. That was very special!
