With only a few weekends left before Christmas, there are only two more practise runs for your Sunday roast before the big festive feast.
While the turkey and pigs in blankets will always steal the show, you can never underestimate the power of a good gravy, and it's a real essential to prevent anything from being too dry while adding a rich flavour to your plate.
Some people go all out using homemade stock, flour, meat juices and vegetables - but let's be honest, that's an awful lot of effort to add to an already very, very stressful cooking session.
But it turns out that even some top chefs just use those good old supermarket granules, with a few extra tricks to "pimp them up".
Former MasterChef Champion, Kenny Tutt, has shared the way he elevates humble Bisto granules to create a showstopping gravy for your Christmas dinner.
Speaking to The Mirror, he explained why we should stop simply mixing granules with hot water and instead try to make a good base.
He said: "All right, so a really good gravy hack is just about making a base, so we're going to pimp up these gravy granules.
"Rather than just going into some water, we've made a wonderful base with some roasted chicken wings. We've hit it with some red wine to deglaze the pan and then just let that bubble and infused all that wonderful chicken flavour."
To try this at home for yourself you'll need several ingredients that you may already have in the kitchen - chicken wings (or your turkey at Christmas), oil, garlic and thyme, some cheap red wine, the all-important gravy granules, then either some soy sauce or a teaspoonful of Marmite and Worcestershire sauce (optional) if you have some.
Kenny begins by placing the chicken wings in a roasting tin, drizzling over some oil, adding some crushed garlic and sprigs of thyme and popping it all in the oven to roast until nice and brown.
He then deglazes the tin with a couple of glasses (roughly half a bottle) of red wine and a small amount of water.
"The cooking water from any vegetables you're also serving would be ideal for this," he advises.
The whole thing is put on the hob over a medium heat and left to cook out.
Once this is done, you need to strain the content of the pan through a sieve, pushing down on the chicken with a spoon to make sure you get all of the juices out, before adding a dash of soy sauce (or Marmite if you prefer) for some umami flavour, as well as some Worcestershire sauce (if using) and two tablespoons of your supermarket gravy granules.
Give it all a good mix and then you can then pop the liquid back on the hob to just thicken it up nicely and there you have it - restaurant-quality gravy!
To make it even more luxurious, you can also add a knob of butter to the pan while thickening it up. This will also help add a glossy shine to your gravy.
"Once this is left on the stove, it's going to thicken up and all come together," Kenny adds. "You're left with a wonderfully sweet, rich gravy that's perfect for a Christmas dinner."
Do you have a food story to share? We want to hear all about it. Email courtney.pochin@mirror.co.uk
