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Liverpool Echo
Liverpool Echo
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Courtney Pochin & Gemma Jones

Chef shares 'epic' little-known roast potato cooking hack

A top chef has shared a secret ingredient to make your roasties 'epic'.

He claims he adds one simple ingredient to roast potatoes to helps elevate the taste and make it even more 'epic' than your average spud. Great British Menu winner and owner of Benedicts Restaurant in Norwich, Richard Bainbridge, has revealed to The Mirror his hack to make roast potatoes have amazing flavour - and he claims the tip also works well to spruce up your turkey.

Everyone seems to have their own tricks and techniques for cooking roasties - from using a certain type of fat to adding Marmite before popping them in the oven. But what does the chef do that's different from the rest?

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Each Christmas he always makes sure to sprinkle a crushed Chicken OXO stock cube over his potatoes and bird before roasting them in the oven. And when it comes to pimping up your starter, Bainbridge advocates smashing up some frozen raspberries and adding them on top of a prawn cocktail.

If this isn't enough to get you in the cooking mood, the expert also shared some of his top tips for organisation and preparation ahead of December 25. And the main advice he can give is to make most of your accompaniments as far in advance as possible and freeze them, this includes pastry, cranberry sauce, mincemeat and brandy butter.

He explained: "When it comes to any large party or when you are required to cook for large numbers preparation is essential, for example, two weeks before Christmas you should start writing your to-do list and making any items you can in advance so that the day before and the morning of, the bulk of your preparation is complete and you can be calm and relaxed with a glass of Sherry in hand as no one likes to see a stressed chef."

Richard continued: "In the lead-up to Christmas homemade pastry is a store cupboard must. Make it in advance and it can be kept for up to three months in the freezer, perfect for those emergency canapés.

"Mincemeat is another great store cupboard essential which can be made at the end of the summer... if you're that organised, while Christmas cake, Christmas pudding and brandy butter are some of the greatest things about Christmas and as they contain so much booze the flavour can be preserved for ages."

He added: "The brandy butter can be whipped up in a large batch and used all year round - my mum will still be finding uses for it next July."

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