On this Christmas, I tried to remember how many turkeys I had cooked over the years. Between Thanksgiving and Christmas, I must have roasted a sizeable flock. I am more than happy to join holiday celebrations of any religion, and turkey is very much part of Christmas. However, I must confess to being all turkeyed out: the bird, although festive with its large size and crispy golden skin, is a bit bland and has a tendency to become dry. Even though I use a slow-cooking technique and make rich gravy, the result is boring.

For the last few years, we have spent Christmas at our beach house in Sri Lanka, so turkey was not really an option unless we were prepared to order an expensive one from Colombo. However, we are in Dorset this fortnight because my step-daughters couldn’t fly to Sri Lanka, and for a change, we decided to cook a goose. All I knew about geese is that they contain a lot of fat, so you need to cook it on a wire rack over a deep baking tin.

The Jamie Oliver recipe the lady wife found called for a number of spices such as nutmeg and saffron rubbed on to the bird. It is then roasted at high heat to sear the surface before lowering the temperature of the oven, and allowed to cook until it’s done in a couple of hours, depending on the size of the bird. It is then removed from the oven, covered in foil and allowed to cool. The skin is then removed and placed in the oven to crisp. The dark cooking juices are the base of gravy that thickens on a high heat. Finally, the meat is sliced, covered with the crispy skin, and the whole platter is sprinkled with pomegranate seeds. There was an unbelievable amount of goose fat that I plan to use to roast potatoes at some point.

Many people believe that Christmas would not be the same without traditional roast turkey at the table. However, turkey can be boring

For Christmas Eve dinner, my brother-in-law Robbie had brought a five-kilo rack of beef ribs. Acquired from a very good and very expensive butcher in London, this was some of the finest beef I have eaten. Robbie also parboiled a number of quartered potatoes and sprinkled them generously with olive oil before placing the tray in the oven. By the time the beef had rested, the potatoes were crisp and golden on the outside.

I had been asked to cook two meals for the nine-member tribe that had assembled. We had ordered venison and pheasants online from Sri Lanka and our package was delivered soon after we got back. I made a karahi venison on one evening, and a dum pukht pheasant as my next offering. This is a bird that used to be common in our hills once until it was hunted to extinction. Between a grouse and a small chicken in size, it has a nice, rich flavour. In England, they are bred for hunting, and are a common sight in the countryside as they amble mindlessly along the roads. During the early part of the hunting season in autumn, they don’t equate human beings with danger. As a result, thousands are shot every day, and farmers make a lot of money by permitting bankers from London to shoot on their land.

This was my first attempt at dum pukht style cooking, and I was quite satisfied with the result. Basically, you chuck in the sliced onion, garlic and ginger paste, spices, salt, some yoghurt, a couple of diced tomatoes and a kilo of meat, chicken or game into a heavy pan that has a tightly fitting lid. You don’t need to fry the onions or roast the spices. Put a heavy weight on the lid to prevent any of the steam from escaping and cook on a very low heat for a couple of hours. By the end of this time, you should have a dish of meat that’s falling off the bone and a small amount of delicious gravy. It’s that easy, but the trick is in keeping the dish tightly sealed.

Frankly, I’d much rather cook pheasant than turkey, even though this is a heretical sentiment on Christmas.

Published in Dawn, Sunday Magazine, January 8th, 2017