Jamie Oliver’s Christmas

Cook up some mouthwatering dishes during the festive season with recipes from Jamie Oliver’s first Christmas cook book (#jamieoliver #jamieoliverrecipe).

TURKEY SLOPPY JOES TASTY SLAW WITH GHERKINS & CHILLI, HOMEMADE BBQ SAUCE

The sloppy Joe is so much more than a sandwich or a burger, and giving it the Christmas treatment means we’re taking that bun filled with delicious pulled meat and crunchy exciting veg, served with gravy for dunking, to the next level.

Serves 4

Total time: 20 minutes

200g leftover cooked higher-welfare turkey meat

200ml leftover higher-welfare turkey gravy

1 carrot

1 apple

½ a red onion

2 sprigs of fresh mint

2 gherkins

1 fresh red chilli

4 seeded wholemeal buns

BBQ SAUCE

2 tablespoons tomato ketchup

1 tablespoon HP sauce

1 teaspoon English mustard

½ teaspoon chipotle Tabasco sauce

1 splash of Worcestershire sauce

Shred and pull apart your leftover turkey meat and place in a small pan with a splash of water and 4 tablespoons of gravy. Pop a lid on and place on the lowest heat for 10 minutes to warm through. Warm the rest of the gravy in a separate pan, ready to use it for dunking later.

Meanwhile, peel and finely shred the carrot, matchstick the apple, peel and finely slice the red onion, and pick and slice the mint leaves. Place it all in a bowl with 1 tablespoon of pickling liquid from your gherkin jar. Finely slice the gherkins, using a crinkle-cut knife if you’ve got one, and the chilli, add to the bowl, mix well, lightly season and put aside. Mix all the BBQ sauce ingredients together.

Split and toast your buns, then spread the BBQ sauce inside them, top and bottom. Pile your pulled turkey on the bun bases, drizzle with a little gravy and top with some of that tasty slaw. Pop the bun lids on, and you’re away. Serve the rest of the gravy on the side for a naughty dunk, along with any leftover slaw.

HASSELBACKS

TURKEY DRIPPING, BLUE CHEESE & CRUSHED HAZELNUT CRUMB

These sexy little beauties are super-fun to make, look amazing, loads of people will never have seen or enjoyed them before, and the flavour combination here just cooks into the potatoes so, so well. People. Will. Talk. About. These.

Serves 10 as a side

Total time: 1 hour 15 minutes

2.5kg Maris Piper potatoes (choose the smallest ones)

½ a bunch of fresh thyme (15g)

4 tablespoons turkey dripping or olive oil

50g stale bread

40g hazelnuts

100g blue cheese

Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/gas 4. The fun and unique part of this side dish is that you need to slice multiple times through the potatoes, but – importantly – without going all the way through, giving you a kind of concertina-style potato. This looks beautiful but also makes them wonderfully absorbent of flavour and amplifies their crispiness. Try to choose small potatoes, give them a wash, and if you have any larger ones, cut them in half and use the flat side as a base.

To make this process as simple as possible, place a potato on a board between the handles of two wooden spoons, so that when you slice down into the potato the spoons stop the blade from going all the way through. Carefully slice at just under ½cm intervals all the way along. Repeat with all the potatoes, placing them in a large roasting tray as you go. Pick half the thyme leaves into a pestle and mortar and pound with the turkey dripping or oil. Spoon over the potatoes, making sure the fat gets down into the cuts you’ve made, then season with sea salt and black pepper. Roast for 1 hour, or until the potatoes are golden and tender.

Meanwhile, tear the bread into a baking dish, add the hazelnuts and toast in the oven for 10 minutes. Remove and allow to cool, then tip into a food processor, strip in most of the remaining thyme leaves, add a pinch of sea salt and black pepper and half the cheese, and pulse into coarse crumbs.

When the hour is up, sprinkle the crumbs over the potatoes, then finely crumble a little bit of the remaining blue cheese on to each one. Dress the rest of the thyme sprigs with a tiny bit of oil and sprinkle randomly on top. Return to the oven for a final 10 minutes, or until the cheese starts to melt, then serve.

Get ahead

You can cook these in advance up to the point where they’re roasted and sprinkled with the toppings, then just finish them off when you’re ready, ensuring that they’re hot and crisp before serving.

RED CABBAGE, CRISPY SMOKED BACON & ROSEMARY, APPLE, FENNEL SEEDS & BALSAMIC

Celebrating one of the most affordable veg out there – the humble red cabbage – this is a really delicious, classic veg dish. Wonderful as it is hot, I also love it cold, almost like a salad, with meat and cheese, so embrace those leftovers.

Click away any tatty outer leaves from your cabbage, trim off the base, cut the cabbage into wedges, then finely slice it and put aside. Finely slice the bacon and place in a large casserole pan on a medium heat with 1 tablespoon of oil. Leave it to crisp up while you peel, core and dice the apples.

When the bacon is crispy, strip the rosemary leaves into the pan, stir for 1 minute, then use a slotted spoon to remove the bacon and rosemary to a plate, leaving the smoky bacon fat behind. Add the fennel seeds and diced apples to the pan, then tear in the prunes, removing any stones. Stir and fry for 2 minutes, then finely grate in the clementine zest and squeeze in the juice. Add the vinegar, cabbage and a pinch of sea salt and black pepper. Cook with a lid ajar on a low heat for 20 to 25 minutes, or until cooked through and a pleasure to eat, stirring well every 5 minutes to help intensify and mix up the flavours. Serve sprinkled with the crispy bacon and rosemary leaves.

Make this the day before and simply reheat it in a pan – it’ll taste great, but if you do this I’d recommend stirring the bacon and rosemary through it rather than serving them on top as a garnish.