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The pefect Christmas Dinner with celebrity tricks

Christmas dinner at Jamie Oliver's or Nigella Lawson's must be quite nice, but if you're not fortunate enough to get an invitation to a festive feast by any celebrity chefs, fear not, this year we bring their magic to you

Whether you're in pursuit of the perfect roast potato or an evenly-cooked turkey, let the celebrity kings and queens of the culinary world share their secrets with you.

• Gennaro Contaldo: the perfect starter
• Jamie Oliver: evenly-cooked turkey
• Heston Blumenthal: flawless roast potatoes
• Nigella Lawson: 'save the sprouts' appeal
• Delia Smith: ditch the gravy granules
• Brian Turner: fuss-free bread sauce
• Rose Gray: a fruity idea for stuffing
• Nigel Slater: the ultimate Christmas pudding

The perfect starter by Gennaro Contaldo
The perfect Christmas dinner starter strikes the right balance between tantalising the taste buds and leaving room for the main course. Gennaro Contaldo suggests Carpaccio of sea bass with pink grapefruit as a tasty dish to kick of the feast.

'This is a beautifully delicate starter of thinly sliced raw sea bass. The combination of slightly sour, tangy pink grapefruit works really well with the raw fish. This is an extremely simple dish to prepare, the only skill required being slicing the fish very thinly, so make sure you have a good sharp knife. Also, make sure the sea bass is very fresh! It makes a lovely starter for Christmas lunch.'

• Carpaccio of sea bass with pink grapefruit recipe

Jamie Oliver's secret to an evenly-cooked turkey
'One of the biggest challenges when cooking a turkey is that the legs take longer than the breasts. The breasts dry out in the oven while you're waiting for the legs to cook. I like to push stuffing between the turkey's skin and breasts, increasing the thickness of the breasts so they take the same time to cooks as the legs. The result? Juicy turkey all round!'

Heston Blumenthal's flawless roast potatoes
It's not all snail porridge and bacon and egg ice cream for Heston, his resolve to produce the perfect traditional roast potato at Christmas is as strong as ours.

'As well as using the right potato (Golden Wonder, Charlotte or Belle de Fontenay are best), it is important never to salt the cooking water, otherwise the potatoes will not crisp up well. When they are parboiled, carefully turn them in flour and place them in the roasting tray.'

Nigella Lawson's 'save the sprouts' appeal
'Just as I have never understood the sheer hostility that a turkey can induce in people, nor do I have much time for the antipathy displayed toward the Brussels sprout. Again, the cause for complaint stems from over-cooking. When a sprout is allowed to keep a bit of bite, it has a nutty freshness. It helps if the sprouts you're cooking are relatively small; once they've reached the large, blowsy unfurling stage they can be harder to deal with satisfactorily.'

• Brussels sprouts with California pistachios, shallots and bacon

It's all gravy with Delia
Delia's much-loved, old-school approach to cooking says ditch the gravy granules. 'I would like to say quite emphatically that commercially produced gravy mixes, highly flavoured beef extracts, meat cubes or stock cubes are not needed.

'The chemical flavours will not enhance the meat at all: on the contrary they only compete with it. So what is needed? Quite simply, the meat roasting tin containing its fat and juices - or the pan in which the meat has been browned. The additional liquid can be wine, dry cider, stock or even water.'

Brian Turner's Bread sauce
No traditional Christmas dinner is complete without the obligatory bread sauce to dip your various bits of meat and veg into, and it needn't take up much of your time to prepare.

'For a rich bread sauce, use two thirds milk and one third double cream and allow to stand for ten minutes to infuse the cumin, cloves and bayleaf flavours. Make at the last minute, put a blob of butter on top so it doesn't skin, and remember it will get thicker as it stands.'

A fruity idea for stuffing by Rose Gray
'I like to make my stuffings spicy, fruity, and with a carbohydrate content that moistens and slows down the cooking of the birds' breasts, and increases the juiciness of the meat. Ideal combinations for duck, partridge and turkey are chestnuts, fresh boiled lemon pieces, whole garlic cloves, celery stalks and leaves, sage leaves, chilli flakes, apples, quinces, dried apricots, and spices such as fennel seeds, cinnamon sticks and cloves.'

Nigel Slater's ultimate Christmas pudding
'The day I make Christmas pudding is the cooking day I look forward to more than any other. The new heatproof plastic pudding basins with their clip-on lids make good sense, cutting out much fiddle. Yet I still do it the traditional way, wrapping old china bowls in greaseproof, white muslin and string.

'This pudding is lighter and a little less sweet that most. It has the seedy crunch of dried figs, a sparkle from hand-cut peel and a slight tartness from the apricots and orange zests. I don't go for brandy butter or even homemade custard, much preferring the silky contrast of organic double cream.'

• Ultimate Christmas puddings

Sources:
Cook with Jamie by Jamie Oliver, (Penguin, £26)
In Search of Perfection by Heston Blumenthalm, (Bloomsbury, £20)
Feast by Nigella Lawson (Chatto & Windus, £17.99)
Delia Smith's Complete Cookery Course by Delia Smith (BBC Books, £12.99)
The Kitchen Diaries by Nigel Slater (4th Estate, £25)

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