Our best-ever Christmas dinner menus: fusion food

A festive tipple raises everyone’s spirits, but instead of bloating beer, sleep-inducing wine or that most divisive of drinks eggnog, try an interesting cocktail instead. Ren Behan’s classic Polish Krupnik will knock any other mulled drink out of the park – served hot, this combination of vodka, honey, spices and butter is just the ticket for Christmas.

If you fancy yourself as a bit of a mixologist, then Anna Hansen has two cocktails that we can guarantee you won’t have come across before. Her tonka bean sour combines whisky, tonka bean-infused Grand Marnier, egg white, lemon juice and liquorice bitters, while her turmeric margarita is a stunning golden yellow, with plenty of sweetness thanks to the acacia honey.

On to the proper, sit-down dinner now – but don’t expect smoked salmon with blinis or a seasonal soup. Agnar Sverrisson puts his Scandi credentials on display with his dish of prawns with sorrel, cucumber and rye bread, keeping things nice and light before the main dish arrives. Anna Hansen makes a mayonnaise using umeboshi (Japanese pickled plums) and stirs it through a fine venison tartare, serving it on top of a crispbread with a quail’s egg yolk – a beautiful plate of food. Greg Malouf, meanwhile, creates a very modern terrine, using chicken livers and dukkah to create a beautifully rich morsel to get the appetite going.

Ah, the main event – and just when everyone is expecting something more familiar, you bring out the roast baharat and lemon marinated lamb, complete with bright orange sweet potatoes and a striking black sesame sauce. You could also keep things vegetarian-friendly with Vivek Singh’s delightful biryani, served in a pumpkin shell for extra theatre. If your guests really are going to hit the roof unless you serve up some sort of roast bird, however, opt for Pascal Aussignac’s delightful goose – a wholly different approach to the classic that combines classical cooking techniques with more modern ingredients.

There’s no point creating a mindbender of a main if your serving up plain old boiled and roasted veg on the side. Give them the attention they deserve and take a leaf out of Scott Hallsworth’s book, who cooks florets of cauliflower in sake, yuzu juice and soy sauce. Sumayya Usmani gives good old Brussels sprouts a makeover by smothering them in saffron and pistachio-infused butter, and her roast spuds are given a warming kick thanks to cumin, coriander and plenty of black pepper.

We’d guess most of the people around your dinner table this Christmas don’t actually like figgy pudding – and it’s usually the last thing you want at the end of a huge, gut-busting festive meal. But for some reason many of us still persevere through a bowl of the stuff (with extra-rich brandy butter dolloped on top for good measure), all in the name of tradition. Be brave and serve something different – Peter Gordon’s orange cake and coconut custard is tropical, light and very, very delicious, while Greg Malouf’s rose and buttermilk panna cotta has just the right amount of elegant wobble to get everyone excited. Christoffer Hruskova, on the other hand, pays homage to tradition in a different way, serving up the classic Ollebrod.