Perhaps this is your first Christmas with an Everhot cooker, or maybe you have many years of experience and are looking for a little festive inspiration! Either way we have compiled a list of top tips from our chefs, demonstrators, and our ourselves to help you make this your best Everhot Christmas yet.
The versatility of an Everhot cooker comes into its own at Christmas. As a range cooker it offers a range of cooking and baking techniques from the hot ovens with powerful grills, to the simmering and plate warming ovens, hot and simmer plates, and fast action induction hobs. And with it being heat storage, you’ll also stay toasty warm in your kitchen at the same time.
Cooking Turkey in an Everhot
In general, we advise slow cooking your turkey overnight in the simmer oven. By cooking it overnight you have one fewer thing to worry about on Christmas morning – leaving your ovens free for roast potatoes and veggies. Set your bottom or simmer oven to 90 degrees on Christmas Eve. An 8-kilogram turkey will take between 10 to 12 hours, a smaller 6 kilo one will only need 8-10 hours and a slightly bigger 10 kilo bird will need 12-14 hours.
The next morning, leave the turkey to rest on the side. With an hour or so to go for lunch or dinner, remove the foil and baking parchment and pop the turkey back into the top oven for 30 minutes to brown the skin. Then give it at least half an hour to rest before carving. You can watch our Everhot demonstrator, Steven Evans, taking you through the full process:
Last Minute Christmas Pudding
Don’t panic if you haven’t got round to making a Christmas pudding days in advance, we have a fool proof recipe for our Last Minute Christmas Pudding. An all-in-one method which cooks in three hours in the bottom oven set to 100 degrees. So you can do it the day before:
There are loads more Christmas cooking videos here, including mince pies, Christmas biscuits and leftover turkey curry for Boxing Day, all of which can also be found on our YouTube channel and our Recipes page.
Chef Tips from our Ambassadors, Celebs and Us
We’ve collated lots of tips and tricks from lots of the foodies and chefs who work here and with us, to find out how they will be doing things this Christmas:
Claire Thomson, 5 O’Clock Apron
Claire Thomson is a chef and food writer who owns an Everhot 90i in Mustard Yellow. You can often catch sight of it on her incredibly popular Instagram channel @5oclockapron where she whips up recipe Reels each week. This Christmas Claire is choosing to cook rib of beef for her family, with baked squash for her vegetarian daughter.
Claire’s technique is to reverse sear her beef – which her husband Matt, who is also a chef, enjoys doing. This means cooking it in the bottom oven of her Everhot 90i for four hours, with just oil, salt and pepper and maybe some thyme to season it. Before placing it under the grill in the top oven for a few moments before serving to caramelise it deliciously. Just make sure you use a probe, like a Meater to check the internal temperature when cooked.
They also use the top oven grill to char Brussels sprouts (with bacon, sage and nuts), and the bottom simmering oven to warm mulled wine and keep the gravy and bread sauce warm.
Sue Goring, curator of our sister company, Everhot Essentials
Sue tells us she likes to try and get as much as possible prepared before the actual day, so that she can spend lots of time out of the kitchen and with her family: “For example, I make the red cabbage a few days in advance, which enhances the flavours anyway. I make the stuffing and freeze it a couple of weeks before. I defrost it on Christmas Eve to stuff the turkey and put the rest in a buttered dish to cook on Christmas Day. I make the stock for the gravy once I have collected the turkey and have the giblets and then keep it in the fridge ready for Christmas Day.”
This Christmas for pudding, Sue is making profiteroles! Again she does this in advance, making the choux buns the week before and storing them in an air tight container ready to be filled with cream and dipped in chocolate on the day. Click here for the recipe.
Sue says: “I make sure I have my Everhot Roasting and Baking trays to hand so that I can make best use of the oven space. And I make sure that all the temperatures are up where I need them early on Christmas Day so that the cooker is ready when I need it.” You can discover the Everhot Essentials website here filled with all the cookware, baking utensils and accessories you should ever need for your Everhot.
Debbie Cook, Everhot Cookers
If you’ve ever called our office or popped by for an event, then you’ve probably met Debbie. She’s been with Everhot for seven years and is also the proud owner of an Everhot 60 in Marine Blue. Her advice is to avoid overloading the ovens in your Everhot on Christmas Day. Instead use the time in the run up to Christmas to precook food: “Your Everhot is always on, so use it!” Debbie loves slow cooking a gammon joint in the run up to Christmas in her bottom oven.
Lisa Blackburn, Everhot Cookers
If you haven’t spoken to Debbie, then surely you have spoken to Lisa. Lisa is one of our star bakers and often provides the goodies for our monthly Coffee and Cake Mornings here at Everhot HQ. She has a 120i in Marine Blue.
Lisa says if you’re planning to add Yorkshire puddings to your Christmas Day menu then her trick is to pop the grill on in your top oven for just four minutes before you pop your batter in to cook. This gives the oven a quick temperature boost and helps with the initial rise: “The pressure of cooking Yorkshire Puddings as a Yorkshire lass is immense, but I have never had a disaster with them yet!”
Alan Knott from Badminton House
Alan is the personal chef to the Duke and Duchess of Beaufort at Badminton House where he cooks on an Everhot 150i in Marine Blue. Alan tries to keep their Christmas menu as seasonal as possible, especially with their big kitchen garden giving him constant access to fresh produce. The Beaufort family will be celebrating Christmas this year with traditional turkey, a ham, and a vegetarian option with all the trimmings.
Alan tells us: “Normally three or four days before Christmas I’ll go up to the walled garden and select the vegetables that are needed. We always have a good choice of Brussels sprouts, cavolo nero, swish chard, curly kale, and Maris Piper potatoes. The deal being I have to take the gardeners mince pies and mulled wine otherwise I’m not allowed to collect the veg!
“We have canapes before Christmas lunch. This year one of them will be rolled smoked salmon on homemade buck wheat blinis. The batter is poured onto Bake O Glide which is laid directly onto the simmer plate.”
Alan also slow cooks his turkey overnight: “To do this I place the bird on a trivet of onions and root vegetables. I then pour in a bottle of white wine and cover with foil. I find it never it dries out this way. I finish it in the very hot oven for 20 mins to get it nice and brown. It’s rested for a good couple of hours which gives us time to reheat the other dishes like the gravy and veg which is precooked the day before and then warmed in the Everhot in the morning.”
To discover more hints and tips about how to cook in an Everhot you can find us on Instagram, Facebook and YouTube.
