It's that time again, isn't it? The butchers' shops are filling up with the carcasses of flightless monsters - vast pimpled lumps of flesh dangling like pallid velociraptors and promising … what? After a fraught night of preparation, if you can avoid the perils of freezer-induced salmonella, your family will sink their teeth into a chest as bronzed, steroid pumped and frankly unappetising as the Governor of California.
I've tried goose: rich and flavourful but costing more per lean, muscled kilo than David Beckham; I've tried Heston's uber-technique - rendering turkey flesh interesting by brief browning, long cossetting and repeated injections of flavourful fats - much like the gossip concerning Mrs. Beckham - but neither will do for this year.
After many years of cooking Christmas lunch I've decided this time to hold a gathering the week before, for the people I'd really like to share it with. There will be drinking, feasting, gifts and - I almost choke to say it - 'all the trimmings', but to really set it off I want to try a multi-bird roast, and I need your help.
Ordinarily for a project like this, I'd spend a few days bothering the interwebs for recipes and hockling through books for historical antecedents but I want to handle this in a slightly different way.
Emboldened by Allegra's success with her Clickalongs I'd like to make the process interactive and develop the recipe with the WoM community. Please help me out with your ideas, any experiences with multi-bird roasts, your suggestions for birds, stuffings and techniques.
We can use three birds or more, bone them partially or completely and even think about a finishing glaze. We've got plenty to play with.
Once we've decided how it should be done we'll get the Guardian's video team to film the process then I'll dish it up to my guests on the 18th and report the results. I'll also write up the recipe in full and we'll stick it out there on the site.
It should, at the very least, be entertaining to watch and, as far as I know this will be the first time anyone has attempted empirical proof that too many cooks can actually come up with a great result.
