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Porchetta makes a wonderful alternative to Turkey for your festive centrepiece. Porchetta originates from Italy and is a rolled joint of pork belly stuffed full of fragrant herbs. It is slow cooked for soft tender meat but still with beautiful crispy crackling on the outside. Serve this Porchetta alongside rosemary roast potatoes and fresh sautéed greens.

Begin by prepping your pork. Score the skin of the pork belly with a knife in lines at an angle across the whole skin, then place in the fridge uncovered overnight – this will help dry out the moisture in the skin and ensure you have super crispy crackling.

Meanwhile you can make the stuffing for the porchetta. In the olive oil lightly fry the onion with a pinch of Maldon salt for 5 minutes until softened. Then add the crushed garlic and fennel seeds and fry for another 2 minutes. Remove from the heat and tip into a bowl to cool. Once cooled add the lemon zest, chopped pistachios, sage, parsley, breadcrumbs and season with Maldon salt and cracked black pepper. Mix well and set aside.

Preheat the oven to 200C.

Once you are ready to cook your pork remove from the fridge. Place it on a board skin side down, and then cover the flesh with your stuffing mixture. Using butchers string carefully roll your meat and bind together in 3 or 4 places tightly to keep it in a roll.

Place the rolled joint onto a baking tray and drizzle the skin with olive oil, rubbing it in and then sprinkle liberally with Maldon salt. Place the tray into your preheated oven for 30 minutes until the crackling is crispy and golden. Then turn your oven down to 180C and cook for a further 2 hours. If the crackling begins to look a little too dark, then you might want to cover it with some foil.

After the cooking time remove your porchetta from the oven and rest for 20 minutes until ready to serve!

This is a recipe for a delicious Rum spiced Ham, perfect for the festive period – this could be served on Christmas eve or New Year’s Eve and would be perfect alongside slow cooked red cabbage and dauphinoise potatoes. It is surprisingly easy to prepare and any leftovers make the best sandwiches!

Traditionally, a gammon joint would often require soaking overnight to remove some of the strong salt from the cure. However, more often these days the butchers use cures which don’t require this – check with your butcher first if you are unsure.

Take a large pan, big enough to hold your ham and to the pan fill it up halfway with water. To the water add the black treacle and mix in well. Then add your gammon joint and top up the pan with some more cold water until it just covers the ham. Then add the bay leaves, half an orange, cinnamon stick, star anise, black peppercorns and cloves. Then place on the hob and bring the liquid up the boil and then reduce to a low simmer and let it simmer for 2 hours 30 mins. Keep topping up the water level if necessary, to ensure the ham is evenly covered.

Preheat oven to 180C.

After 2 hours 30 mins remove the ham from the heat and allow to cool slightly before removing carefully from the pan of water.

Place the ham on a large baking tray and using a sharp knife, score the skin in a diamond pattern. In small bowl mix together the spiced rum, 2 tbsp black treacle, Dijon mustard, Maldon salt and 1 tbsp olive oil. Use a pastry brush to rub this glaze all over the ham. Then place into the oven for 15 – 20 minutes. Remove from the oven and brush again with any remaining glaze.

Let the ham rest for 30 minutes before slicing and serving.

These sweet festive cookies are a wonderful treat to gift to friends and are great fun to make with children. They are spiced with the Christmas flavours of cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and cloves and then iced with pretty patterns to decorate. The cookies should last in an airtight container for 1 week.

Using an electric whisk or stand mixer, start by creaming together the butter and brown sugar (ensure your butter is softened to room temperature before you attempt to do this). Once the mixture is pale and fluffy add the molasses and vanilla extract and mix again.

 In a separate bowl mix together the dry ingredients; the plain flour, Maldon salt, bicarbonate of soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger and cloves. Add the dry ingredients into the butter mixture in stages and then mix until it forms a soft dough. Wrap the dough in clingfilm and chill in the fridge for an hour.

Preheat the oven to 170C.

After the dough has chilled, remove it from the fridge and on a lightly floured surface roll out the dough until it is roughly ½ cm thick. Use any cutters you like to cut out shapes – gingerbread men, stars, Christmas trees, candy canes – have fun with it! Place the biscuits onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper, keeping the biscuits a few cm’s apart (you may need to do this across a couple of trays). Put the trays into the preheated oven and bake for 14 – 15 minutes until the biscuits are slightly darker and baked through. Remove from the oven and allow to cool slightly before lifting onto a wire rack to cool fully.

To make the icing place the 500g icing sugar into a bowl and add 1 tbsp water, mix until it forms a paste. Keep adding a small amount of water at a time till you reach your desired consistency. You want the icing to still be thick enough to pipe and hold its shape. Once you have the correct consistency, pour the icing into a piping bag with a small nozzle attachment and decorate the cooled biscuits anyway you like.

Lobster, prawns and crayfish are often considered delicacies for a special occasion, so this BBQ recipe with smoky siracha mayonnaise and herbed butter is perfect for a showstopping Christmas feast.

Begin by mixing together the herb butter for your seafood. In a small bowl mix together the softened butter with Maldon salt, cracked black pepper, the chopped parsley and coriander. Set aside.

The perfect way to cook your seafood is on a hot BBQ, however if you don’t have one then a griddle pan will work too. Make sure it has reached a medium to high temperate, and start by grilling your lobster halves. Cook flesh side down on the griddle until the meat has turned pink and has some lovely charring on it. The shells will turn orangey pink too, and this is when you know your lobster are cooked. Do the same with the king prawns and crayfish, although these will take less time to cook.

While your seafood is cooking, it is also nice to griddle some lemon to serve alongside. Simply add your lemon halves cut side down onto the grill and allow them to cook and char for 3 minutes.

Once your seafood is all cooked, pile onto a large serving platter and using a pastry brush, brush all across the flesh with your delicious herb butter – letting it melt in. Place your griddled lemon onto the serving platter too.

In a small bowl mix together the mayonnaise and siracha. Serve this alongside the platter of BBQ seafood and allow everyone to tuck in!

This recipe takes the traditional trifle but gives it a Christmassy twist with additions of clementine’s, cardamom, amaretto and pistachio. Not only does it taste amazing, but it makes for a show stopping dessert at your Christmas table.

Begin by making your custard. In a large bowl whisk together the egg yolks with the golden caster sugar until pale and thickened. Then add the cornflour and mix again. In a saucepan, heat the 450ml whole milk, 250ml double cream, 6 based cardamom pods and the vanilla bean paste gently until it reaches scalding point. Then remove from the heat and pour gradually into the egg mixture through a sieve to catch the cardamom pods, whisking as you go until all the milk and cream is added and you have a smooth mixture. Clean out the saucepan and the pour the custard back in. Place it onto the heat once more and gently heat over a low flame, stirring continuously with a wooden spoon or spatula until the custard has thickened.

Remove the custard from the heat and pour into a bowl. Use clingfilm to close cover the surface of the custard – this will stop it from creating a skin – and place into the fridge to cool.

You will need a large trifle dish to assemble your dessert. Start with the clementine’s, peel them and cut into rounds roughly 1cm thick. Place the slices of clementine around the bottom of the trifle dish so they stand up against the sides. Next take the slices of madeira cake and place into the bottom of the dish (these can be used to help stand the clementine slices up) and keep layering up until you have used all the cake.

Next you want to drizzle the madeira cake layer with the 3 tbsp amaretto. The next layer is the custard. Remove the cooled custard from the fridge and pour this over the cake layer.

Finally add the 600ml double cream to a large bowl and add the icing sugar and a pinch of Maldon salt, then either using a balloon whisk or an electric whisk whip the cream until it starts to form soft peaks. Add the 60ml amaretto and whisk again – ensuring not to over whisk – you want medium peaks that aren’t too stiff.

Spoon the cream over the custard layer and use the back of your spoon to create soft peaks in the top. Decorate the top of the trifle with crushed amaretti biscuits, chopped pistachios, physalis fruit and gold leaf, if desired. Serve.

This vegetarian wellington recipe is a fantastic centrepiece for a vegetarian Christmas table. It includes beetroot, butternut squash, lentils and chestnuts all wrapped in wonderfully crisp pastry – no one will miss the meat.

Preheat oven to 180C.

Begin with the butternut squash. Place the diced squash onto a baking tray and drizzle with some oil, Maldon salt and cracked black pepper. Place into the oven and roast for 20 minutes until soft and cooked through.

Meanwhile, in a large frying pan heat 1 tbsp oil. Once the oil is hot, add the diced onion and fry gently for 5 minutes until softened. To the softened onions, add the crushed garlic and cook for a further 2 minutes. Next add the chopped chestnut mushrooms and continue to cook these for 5 – 8 minutes until the mushrooms have softened and beginning to caramelize.

Once the mushrooms are cooked, add the chopped sage and thyme leaves, followed by the cooked puy lentils and double cream. Allow this to fry and cook for 3 minutes, mixing well so everything is well combined. Remove from the heat and add the crumbled cooked chestnuts, Maldon salt, cracked black pepper and the cooked butternut squash. Set aside and allow to cool.

Once the mixture has cooled, you are ready to assemble.

On a lightly floured surface roll out the puff pastry block until it is a roughly 30 x 40cm rectangle and 1cm thick. At this stage you want to carefully lift the rolled pastry onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Next spoon on the cooled filling and spread out evenly, leaving a 1-inch boarder along the top and 1cm board round all the rest of the edges. Next take the cooked beetroot and make sure they are dry of any excess liquid. Choose beetroot that are similar in size and place them in a row down the middle.

Take one of the long sides and lift it up and over the beetroot to enclose them. Pinch the pastry together at the seams and rest the whole wellington seam side down. Pinch the pastry at either end of the wellington also, and trim off any excess.

Use the excess pastry to create long strips and decorate the top of the wellington with a lattice pattern (optional). And brush the entire thing with the beaten egg.

Place the wellington into the fridge for a minimum of 30 minutes (but the longer, the better) to cool.

When ready to bake, take your chilled wellington from the fridge and place into the preheated oven. Bake for 40 – 45 minutes until the pastry is golden and crisp all over. Remove from the oven and allow to rest for 10 minutes before slicing and serving.