Top Christmas recipes: baked ham, roast chicken, stuffing, mashed potatoes, oven-roasted turkey

Here are a selection of Christmas dinner essentials and how to make them. All recipes are for six people.

Tracking Santa this Christmas Eve

Baked ham

Leave a five to six pound raw smoked ham to soak in a bucket of water for 24 hours, changing the water twice.

Preheat your oven to 370F. Drain the ham and bake, wrapped in foil, for two and a half hours.

(BBC goodfood)

Roast chicken

Preheat your oven to 370F. Have one-and-a-halfchopped onion as well as three chopped carrots alognside a four pound chicken in a roasting tin. Put two lemon halves in the cavity of the chicken. Smother the breast and legs with butter.

Place in the oven for 1hr 35mins undisturbed.

(BBC goodfood)

Stuffing

Preheat the oven to 400F. In a heated frying pan add one-and-a-half ounces of butter, two finely chopped onions, and eight sage leaves. Fry for five minutes.

Add four-and-a-half ounces of breadcrumbs to the mix, finally adding one beaten free-range egg.

Form into balls and then roast for 20 minutes in the oven.

(BBC)

Mashed potatoes

Boil three-and-a-half pounds of peeled potatoes, cut into even chunks, for 15 minutes. Drain in a colander then dry them over a low heat for two minutes.

Heat a tablespoon of butter with half a cup of milk then pour on the potatoes. use a masher to mash until a creamy mess.

(BBC goodfood)

Oven-roasted turkey

Preheat your oven to 370F. Put one quartered onion inside the turkey. The turkey itself should be cooked for ten minutes per pound with a further 90 minutes at the end.

Smear the breast with three ounces of butter. Cover the turkey in foil to prevent the moisture from evaporating.

To test whether the turkey is cooked stab it with a knife. If the juices run clear then the turkey is cooked.

(BBC goodfood)