Rick Stein is ready to weigh in on one the most controversial of subjects. Not the economy, immigration or assisted dying, but the topic that divides families around tables across the UK every Christmas: the best way to do roast potatoes. “It’s a recipe I’ve got off my mother, slightly modified,” he tells me. “You can boil the potatoes in salted water the day before Christmas, as long as you don’t put them back in the fridge. I tend to use duck fat or goose fat, because most Christmases I tend to roast a goose. I cook the potatoes until they’re slightly beginning to crumble, then I add semolina or polenta, and turn the potatoes around in that to give them more of a crumbly edge.” Then he “bung[s] it all in the oven, turning the potatoes over during the cooking.”
Stein likes his food to be fuss-free. He’s not a fan of gels, foams or micro leaves, something he refers to as “the school of spit and chives”.
“I really like simplicity and good quality ingredients,” he says. “I have a good friend, a chef in Sydney called Neil Perry, with a successful restaurant called Margaret. He really likes a fillet of fish cooked over charcoal with a lick of olive oil and lemon juice, that’s it. He’s really into where the fish comes from. He knows the fishermen, when the fish was landed... There’s a purity about doing things like that. It’s the same way that I like a piece of fish, some runner beans and a simple potato dish. That’s me happy.”
It’s an approach that has clearly worked. Michelin stars, the Holy Grail for some chefs, have eluded Stein—not something that fills him with great sadness, he says (“It’s not my style.”). But having started out with The Seafood Restaurant in Padstow, Cornwall (which celebrated its 50th anniversary this year), the English chef, author and TV presenter now has an impressive portfolio of successful businesses, including restaurants, bars, a fish and chip shop and a cookery school.
Originally from the Cotswolds, he set off on his global adventures in his late teens after the death of his father, exploring Australasia and the Americas. Now, with his Australian wife and business partner, Sarah, he divides his time between Padstow, London and Sydney, alternating each Christmas between the UK and Australia.
His new cookbook Rick Stein’s Christmas features poultry and game (pheasant breast with Islay malt and celeriac, apple and parsnip rösti) and seafood (lobster and prawn pithivier). It veers from Christmas classics like mince pies and Yule log, to dishes influenced by his visits to India, Mexico and Korea.
“I’ve travelled all over the world. I love Italian food, Mexican food,” he says, “But the food I remember best is the food from when I was a child: simple British food.” Stein has fond childhood memories of Christmas, of “having your mum and dad and brothers and sisters in a nice home in the Cotswolds, all the nice food, the nice smells and the coldness of the Cotswolds in the 1960s.”
As with so many people at Christmas, though, his memories are sometimes tinged with sadness for those who are absent. “He committed suicide, my dad. I went through a phase of coming to terms with it,” says Stein. “It was traumatic. But of late, I just remember my dad fondly. I kind of got over the trauma of the way he died, and I just remember him as someone who had a lot of taste and enthusiasm and a lot of love for good food. It’s funny, my dad was called Eric and when I put on a certain sports jacket, maybe a bit old-fashioned, like a herringbone tweed jacket, my wife will say ‘Oh, you’re dressing like Eric today.’ Even though there is all that trauma, I look back on my childhood with my mum and dad with great affection.”
