Roast potatoes

Felicity's roast potatoes. Photograph: Linda Nylind for the Guardian

Turkey may be the nominal centrepiece of the Christmas table, but if you get your roast potatoes right then frankly, you could serve chicken nuggets and most people would still be happy as Larry. There's no big secret to greatness here: you don't need to dust them with semolina, as Nigella does (too grainy), or toss them in seasoned flour, as recommended by Good Food magazine.

Potatoes cooked in olive oil and a la Heston (l-r). Photograph: Felicity Cloake

Don't boil them to the point of disintegration like Heston – there's no need, and half of them will fall apart – but do add some of the peelings to the pan when parboiling; believe it or not, they really do improve the flavour (just taste the cooled water for the proof). Toss the potatoes gently while draining, to rough up the edges, rather than laboriously scraping them with a fork. All you really need is hot fat, and an even hotter oven.

Goose fat roast potatoes with seasoned flour, semolina and plain (l-r). Photograph: Felicity Cloake

Beef dripping, although great with beef itself, is too heavy for turkey, olive oil is surprisingly good (although I wouldn't bother with Michael Caines' suggestion of roasting the potatoes in cold pressed extra virgin, which struck me as a waste for a distinctly average result) – but goose fat, if you dare, gives the best flavour of all. Make sure you get it nice and hot before you add the potatoes, and toss them in the fat before putting them in a good hot oven for at least 45 minutes – by the time they're ready, the turkey should have been rested and carved.

Serves 6

This recipe also works for 450g parsnips – blanch for 3 minutes instead, and cook for about 45 minutes

1.2kg floury potatoes, e.g. Desiree, King Edward, Maris Piper
Jar of goose fat or 4 tbsp olive oil

1. Pre-heat the oven to 190C. Wash and peel the potatoes, reserving the peel. Cut them in half or quarters, depending on their size. Put them in a large pan of salted boiling water, along with the peel – it's easiest if you can put this in a muslin infusing bag. Parboil for 8 minutes.

2. Meanwhile, put 2 tbsp of goose fat, or 3 tbsp olive oil in a roasting tin and put it into the oven to heat. Drain the potatoes and discard the peel, then put them back in the pan and shake gently to rough up the edges. Take the roasting tin out of the oven and put on the hob over a gentle heat. Put the potatoes in one by one – they should sizzle as they hit the pan – and baste all over. Season.

3. Roast for about an hour until golden and crunchy, keeping an eye on them and basting with a little more fat if they begin to look dry.

Brussels sprouts

Felicity's sprouts. Photograph: Linda Nylind for the Guardian

There's no need to cross Brussels sprouts on the bottom, whatever Nigella or Raymond Blanc may claim – even Delia concedes that, these days, an incision is "unnecessary". It just makes them waterlogged and mushy. Instead, the most important thing is to pick small sprouts, and to watch over them like a hawk so they don't overcook. If you can only find large ones, cut them in half before cooking, a la Gordon Ramsay, or you'll end up with raw middles and soft outer leaves. I tried cooking them with chestnuts, as suggested by the Leiths Cookery Bible, but found the textures too similar; crunchy toasted almonds are a much better complement to the vegetable's nutty flavour.

500g Brussels sprouts, washed and trimmed
Large knob of butter
100g flaked almonds

1. Bring a large pan of salted water to the boil. Put the sprouts in, and cook until just tender – depending on their size, this will take about 5 to 8 minutes, but keep checking, because overcooking will be fatal.

2. Meanwhile, melt the butter in a large frying pan, and add the nuts. Toast until lightly browned. Drain the sprouts, add to the pan and toss well to coat. Season and serve immediately.

Mince pies

Felicity's mince pies. Photograph: Linda Nylind for the Guardian

Anyone who says they don't like mince pies simply isn't eating the right kind – it's easy to take against those oddly sweet and sour supermarket versions, with their flabby, sugary pastry, but the beauty of making your own is that you can customise the filling to your taste.

Leiths banana mincemeat. Photograph: Felicity Cloake

I tried four different mincemeat recipes, each with the usual dried vine fruits, mixed peel and apple base. Leiths mincemeat includes a chopped banana, which adds a surprisingly subtle sweetness to the mix, but means that the mincemeat has to be used immediately, so the flavours don't have a chance to really develop.

Delia's recipe has a similarly surprising addition – fresh cranberries (which I'm pleased to see don't need mincing, to add some "sharp acidity" to the mixture. Rather too much of it, in my opinion – cranberries are indeed very sharp. Her recipe also differs from the rest by gently cooking the mincemeat for 3 hours to melt the suet. This, she says, coats the apple, and stops it fermenting. It does, however, make the mixture look pretty ugly, so unless you're planning on keeping the mincemeat for a few months, it probably isn't worth it.

Mrs Beeton's mincemeat. Photograph: Felicity Cloake

Mrs Beeton, of course, uses real mince in her mincemeat – lean rump steak, to be precise. It has novelty value, but I can't really see that such a small amount adds much to the pies themselves, apart from making people oddly nervous – and after it's been matured for two weeks it's impossible to distinguish it from the rest of the ingredients. The Ballymaloe Cookery Course mincemeat, matriarch Myrtle Allen's family recipe, calls for the apple to be baked before it's stirred it into the rest of the ingredients. I don't like the smoother texture this gives the mincemeat, or the breakfasty flavour that the marmalade she uses imparts, but whisky is, I have to agree, a much nicer idea than brandy – it has a more assertive booziness which seems appropriate at this time of year. Feel free to tinker with the ratio, or mix of dried fruit and nuts in the recipe below – if you often find mincemeat too sweet, for example, substitute sour cherries for the glace ones.

Nigella flaky pastry and Delia mincemeat. Photograph: Felicity Cloake

If you've made the mincemeat, then you may as well go the whole hog and knock up some pastry as well – the admiration you'll receive is utterly disproportionate to the actual work involved. Nigella's flaky pastry is too greasy for mince pies, I find – crumbly shortcrust works better, particularly if you're not going to scoff them all straight from the oven. Plain shortcrust is boring though: instead, replace some of the flour with ground almonds, as Leiths do, and add a little orange flower water, like Nigella, to make the case as tasty as the filling.

Makes 20 mince pies

50g each sultanas, raisins, currants, mixed peel
50g each dried figs and glace cherries, chopped
1 piece stem ginger, finely chopped, plus 1tbsp of its syrup
25g each almonds and pecans, chopped
200g muscovado sugar
½ tsp mixed spice
3 tbsp whisky
2 tbsp suet or cold grated butter
Zest of 1 lemon
1 small unpeeled cooking apple, grated

For the pastry:
340g plain flour
225g cold butter
85g ground almonds
100g golden caster sugar
2 egg yolks
1 tsp orange blossom water
Beaten egg or milk, to glaze
Icing sugar, to dust

1. Mix together the mincemeat ingredients and taste. Add more whisky, or spice to taste. If not using immediately, put into sterilised jars for up to a year.

2. To make the pastry, sieve the flour into a mixing bowl with a pinch of salt. Grate in the butter, and rub into the mixture until it resembles coarse breadcrumbs. Stir in the almonds and sugar.

3. Mix the egg yolks with orange blossom water, and 1½ tbsp of ice-cold water. Add enough to the mixture to bring it together into a firm, but not wet dough when stirred with a knife. Shape into a ball by hand, wrap in clingfilm, and chill for half an hour.

4. Pre-heat the oven to 190C. Grease your tartlet tins with butter, and roll out half the pastry on a floured surface until about 3mm thick. Cut out bases to line the tartlet tins. Fill each ¾ full with mincemeat, then roll out the other half of the pastry and cut out lids. Dampen the edge with a little water or milk, and press down lightly on the pies to seal. Brush the tops with water or beaten egg, and prick the tops with a fork. Bake for about 20 minutes until golden, then cool on a rack and dust with icing sugar.

Brandy butter

Felicity's perfect brandy butter. Photograph: Linda Nylind for the Guardian

This is a great thing to have in the fridge over Christmas; it goes with everything from Christmas pudding and mince pies to hot teacakes and apple crumble. I found Delia and Jane Grigson's recipes, which use caster and icing sugar respectively, to be a little blandly sweet: adding light brown sugar gives a lovely caramelised flavour to the butter, and works well with Grigson's lemon and nutmeg.

Brandy butter. Photograph: Felicity Cloake

If you like your butter to be slightly grainy, like tablet rather than fudge, then substitute caster for the icing sugar, as Leiths do. The clotted cream may seem an odd addition to brandy butter, but it lightens the texture slightly, which means you can have more than a sliver without feeling queasy … which may or may not be a good thing.

225g unsalted butter, at room temperature
55g icing or caster sugar, if you like a more granular texture
55g soft light brown sugar
3 tbsp brandy
Squeeze of lemon juice
2 tbsp clotted cream

Zest of ½ orange, to serve

1. Put the butter into a large bowl, and beat with a wooden spoon or electric beater until soft. Gradually add the sugars, beating well with a wooden spoon or your hands between each addition, then gradually drizzle in the brandy and lemon juice incorporate in the same way, being careful not to go too fast, or it will separate. Mix in the clotted cream.

2. Grate over nutmeg to taste, then store in the fridge, and top with orange zest just before serving.