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Porchetta makes a wonderful alternative to turkey for your festive centerpiece. Porchetta originates from Italy and is a rolled roast 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 roasted 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 refrigerator 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 400°F.

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

Place the rolled roast onto a baking sheet and drizzle the skin with olive oil, rubbing it in, 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 350°F 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 holidays – this could be served on Christmas or New Year’s and would be perfect alongside mashed potatoes and stuffing. It is surprisingly easy to prepare, and any leftovers make the best sandwiches!

Traditionally, a raw ham 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. Add the molasses to the water and mix in well. Then add your ham and top up the pot with 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. Place on the stovetop and bring the liquid to a boil, then reduce to a low simmer and let it simmer for 2 hours 30 minutes. Keep topping up the water level if necessary to ensure the ham is evenly covered.

Preheat oven to 350°F.

After 2 hours 30 minutes, remove the ham from the heat and allow it to cool slightly before carefully removing it from the pot of water.

Place the ham on a large baking sheet and, using a sharp knife, score the fat in a diamond pattern. In a small bowl, mix together the spiced rum, 2 tbsp molasses, 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 flavors 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 all-purpose flour, Maldon salt, baking 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 plastic wrap and chill it in the refrigerator for an hour.

Preheat the oven to 350°F.

After the dough has chilled, remove it from the refrigerator and, on a lightly floured surface, roll out the dough until it is roughly ¼ inch thick. Use any cutters you like to cut out shapes – gingerbread men, stars, Christmas trees, candy canes – have fun with it! Place the cookies onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper, keeping the cookies about 1 inch 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 cookies 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 4 cups of powdered sugar into a bowl and add 1 tbsp of water, mixing 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 tip and decorate the cooled cookies any way you like.

Lobster, shrimp, and crayfish take your backyard cookout to the next level – this grilled seafood platter with smoky sriracha mayonnaise and herbed butter is the perfect showstopper for your next summer gathering.

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 cilantro. Set aside.

The perfect way to cook your seafood is on a hot grill; if you don’t have one, a grill pan will work too. Make sure it has reached a medium to high temperature, and start by grilling your lobster halves. Cook flesh side down on the grill 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 is cooked. Do the same with the jumbo shrimp and crayfish, although these will take less time to cook.

While your seafood is cooking, it is also nice to grill 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 with your delicious herb butter – letting it melt in. Place your grilled lemon onto the serving platter, too.

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

Trifle is a beloved British dessert: layers of cake, custard, fruit, and whipped cream all in one showstopping bowl – and this version gives it a festive twist with clementines, cardamom, amaretto, and pistachio. If you’ve never tried a trifle before, this is the perfect place to start: it’s easier to make than it looks, and it makes for a showstopping addition to your Christmas table.

Begin by making your custard. In a large bowl, whisk together the egg yolks with the superfine sugar until pale and thickened. Then add the cornstarch and mix again. In a saucepan, heat the 1⅞ cups whole milk, 1 cup + 1 tbsp heavy cream, 6 cardamom pods, lightly crushed, and the vanilla bean paste gently until it just begins to steam, and small bubbles form around the edge of the pan (do not let it boil). Then remove from 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 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 plastic wrap to cover the surface of the custard – this will stop it from creating a skin – and place inside refrigerator to cool.

You will need a large trifle bowl to assemble your dessert. Start with the clementines: peel them and cut into rounds roughly ⅓ inch thick. Place the slices of clementine around the bottom of the trifle bowl so they stand up against the sides. Next, take the slices of pound 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 pound cake layer with the 3 tbsp amaretto. The next layer is the custard. Remove the cooled custard from the refrigerator and pour this over the cake layer.

Finally, add the 2½ cups of heavy cream to a large bowl and add the powdered sugar and a pinch of Maldon salt, then either using a whisk or an electric whisk, whip the cream until it starts to form soft peaks. Add the ¼ cup 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 on top. Decorate the top of the trifle with crushed amaretti cookies, chopped pistachios, cape gooseberries, and gold leaf, if desired. Serve.

Wellington is a classic of British cooking: a centerpiece dish traditionally wrapped in puff pastry, and this vegetarian version brings that tradition to your holiday table. It includes beets, butternut squash, lentils and chestnuts all wrapped in wonderfully crisp pastry – no one will miss the meat.

Preheat oven to 350°F.

Begin with the butternut squash. Place the diced squash onto a baking sheet 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 skillet, 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 cremini mushrooms and continue to cook these for 5–8 minutes until the mushrooms have softened and are beginning to caramelize.

Once the mushrooms are cooked, add the chopped sage and thyme leaves, followed by the cooked Puy lentils and heavy cream. Allow this to 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 roughly a 12 x 16-inch rectangle and ⅓ inch 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 border along the top and a ½ inch border around the rest of the edges. Next, take the cooked beets and make sure they are dry of any excess liquid. Choose beets 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 beets 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 (basket-weave pattern you’d see on top of a classic pie) (optional). Brush the entire thing with the beaten egg.

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

When ready to bake, take your chilled wellington from the refrigerator 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.