Let’s face it, this time of year is an ungodly cavalcade of festive catch-ups, work-mandated jollity and exhaustive carousing, culminating in the family feast to end all feasts. It has even the most outré of extroverts longing for a silent night come Boxing Day. So, thank Christ we’re also gifted a blissful, liminal recovery zone at the tail end of December. Once guests have departed, we can awake on 27 December refreshed after a proper snooze, ready to embrace four whole days of leisurely indulgence with nary a compromise dish or tipple in sight.

Should you fancy sipping pét nat in your plush new PJs all morning, that’s fine. A day of cheese-based sustenance, accompanied by vin jaune from Jura? Totally OK, too. Fancy filling your home with beloved pals to feast on tamales and crab, then taking a mallet to a slab of the world’s finest chocolate? You have our blessing. Bon appétit! Read on for further inspiration in stocking the fridge, cellar and larder, as provided by a host of experts.

Cheesemonger and affineur Mr Ruraidh Buchanan spent almost a decade in charge of historic cheese hub Paxton & Whitefield in Jermyn Street, London, before setting up his own shop and tasting room in Notting Hill. A firm believer in less is more, Mr Buchanan brings just one stand-out cheese to the Christmas feast, most recently, roquefort. As for the idle days leading up to New Year’s Eve, here are a few cheeses he likes to have to hand.

“Norton and Yarrow in Oxfordshire makes fantastic cheeses, including Sinudon Hill and Brightwell Ash,” says Mr Buchanan. “What’s nice about pretty little whole cheeses like these is that they’re bright, vibrant and versatile. An individual cheese makes a cracking lunch for two, perhaps in a salad or if, at the last minute Auntie says she’s coming over, you can pop it out with a few cold cuts. It’s also a nice, single-serve cheese board at the end of a dinner.”

“I couldn’t not have a nice lump of a British cheese. They often get overlooked because everyone just whacks out the cheddar, but my favourite is a Gorwydd Caerphilly. It’s just delicious with this lovely, suede-like rind and yoghurty fresh flavour in the middle, which gets more savoury, almost yeasty, towards the edges. It would be rare if this wasn’t in my fridge. It would sit nicely next to the goat’s cheese on a board or, for a more indulgent feast, it makes a cracking cheese toastie with a slice of ham and some leeks.”

“As well as your more obvious stiltons and roqueforts, we work with a producer from the Basque Country called Onetik, which makes our Ossau Iraty, which is what that region is famed for. It also makes a blue sheep’s milk cheese, Bleu des Basques, which we age for about three months here. It’s got this spicy, almost alcohol-like tang to it, and it’s really worth championing. It’s quite strong. If you like a bit of roquefort, you’d probably like it, but it’s pretty punchy.”

“A Mont d’Or is always great. I suggest making a very basic bread dough, letting it prove, rolling it out long and thin, then wrapping it around your cheese, which could be a camembert, English tunworth or oozy goat’s cheese. Scent the cheese with herbs and spices, or garlic or rosemary. Put that in the oven, and in the time it takes the bread to bake, the cheese will be lovely and molten in the middle. You can rip the bread off from the side and dip it in. It’s a bit of a showstopper.

Ms Alison Roman, food writer for The New York Times and Bon Appétit and creator of viral recipe phenomena #thecookies and #thestew, recently followed up the bestselling cookbook Dining In with her latest, Nothing Fancy. Its cover boasts a roast chicken, but the book brims over with delectable vegetable dishes, including a plethora of appealing salads as well as heartier fare ideal for fuss-free dining on a mid-winter evening. It might be Christmas, but not every dish needs to threaten gout. “Sometimes a salad is actually the most comforting thing you can eat, because it makes your body feel good,” says Ms Roman. “It’s also about balance, so if you take a bite of something salty, rich and creamy, you’re going to want something acidic, tangy, crunchy and fresh to go along with it.”

Below, she shares some of her recipes. “To me, that’s the perfect balanced meal,” she says. “I often end up eating vegetarian food at this time of year. If I go to somebody’s house or have a big dinner, it’s mostly meat-focused, so when I’m alone, I’m not eating or cooking as much meat. This is just a really lovely meal. I’d have the gratin and the salad, maybe some crusty bread on the side, some wine and honestly, that would be make me very happy.”

_Nothing Fancy (Hardie Grant Books) by Ms Alison Roman is out now _

• 30g Castelvetrano or oil-cured black olives, pitted and crushed
• 60ml olive oil
• 4 tangerines, or 2 oranges or blood oranges (or a mix), peeled and sliced into 5mm rounds, pips removed
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
• Honey, to taste
• 2 tbsp lemon or lime juice, plus extra to taste
• 1 fennel bulb, trimmed and thinly sliced lengthways
• 1 small or half a large watermelon radish, very thinly sliced (or 4 regular radishes, thinly sliced)

Combine the olives and olive oil in a small bowl and set aside.

Place the citrus slices on a large serving plate or platter. Season with salt and pepper and then a little honey or a splash of lemon juice as needed to make sure everything is tasting as sweet, sour and balanced as possible.

Toss the fennel, radish and the lemon juice in a medium bowl. Season with salt and pepper, adding more lemon juice and salt as needed to make the vegetables very tangy and almost too salty.

Top the citrus with the fennel mixture and spoon the olive mixture over all of that. Finish with lots of black pepper.

The citrus fruit can be peeled and sliced a few hours ahead, wrapped and refrigerated. Fennel and radish can be sliced a few hours ahead, then covered and refrigerated.

• 250ml double cream
• 60g unsalted butter
• 2 garlic cloves, finely grated
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 1.25kg cauliflower, leafy green parts removed
• Half a small sweet or yellow onion, very thinly sliced
• 175g gruyère or white cheddar cheese, grated
• Chilli flakes (optional)
• 175g fresh coarse breadcrumbs or panko (optional)
• 3 tbsp white sesame seeds
• 60ml olive oil (if using breadcrumbs)

Preheat the oven to 215°C.

Bring the cream, butter and garlic to a simmer in a small pan over a medium heat. Season with salt and pepper and remove from the heat.

Slice the cauliflower into slabs 1cm thick. Some of the bits will fall away and crumble into tiny florets; this is fine.

Place the smallest bits of cauliflower in a 23cm pie dish or cake tin. I like the roundness of a pie dish or cake tin, but a 2-litre baking dish of any shape will work. Scatter with some of the onion, followed by some of the cheese. Repeat with the remaining cauliflower, onion and cheese until all of it is used, ending with the cheese.

Pour the cream mixture over, either leaving in the garlic cloves, or removing them. Add a good sprinkling of chilli flakes, if using.

Cover with foil and bake until the cauliflower is tender and cooked through, 20-25 minutes.

Remove the foil and continue to bake until the top is bubbly and golden and the cream has mostly reduced, another 15-20 minutes. The gratin will look slightly runny and creamy in the oven, but will set and thicken once you take it out and let it cool for a few minutes.

If you’re not using the breadcrumbs, sprinkle the sesame seeds over the gratin and season with salt and pepper.

If using the breadcrumbs, combine them in a medium bowl with the sesame seeds and olive oil. Season with salt and pepper and scatter the mixture over the gratin.

Bake for 8-10 minutes, until the topping is deeply and thoroughly crispy and golden brown.

Remove from the oven and let cool slightly before serving.

Gratin (without breadcrumbs) can be baked two days ahead, then kept covered and refrigerated. To reheat, place the uncovered gratin in an oven preheated to 200°C (adding the breadcrumb mix, if using), until bubbling and golden, about 10-15 minutes.

Chef and restaurateur Mr Alain Ducasse owns several god-tier dining establishments, including a trio of three Michelin starred spaces: Alain Ducasse at The Dorchester in London, Alain Ducasse au Plaza Athénée in Paris and Le Louis XV Alain Ducasse à l'Hôtel de Paris in Monaco. He operates a further 20-plus restaurants and his devotion to impeccable ingredients and “devouring passion for chocolate” has led him make time to manufacture his own from painstakingly sourced cocoa beans. Today, you can find his artisanal single-origin bars, bonbons, pralines and other divine creations at Le Chocolat Alain Ducasse stores in cities such as London, Paris and Tokyo.

As for relaxed post-Christmas Day enjoyment, Mr Ducasse reveals a great fondness for his dark single-origin bars and divulges that he “will not resist our trio of candied fruits – orange, lemon and grapefruit. These citruses come from Soveria, a small village in Corsica, and are coated with dark chocolate. An irresistible experience.” He goes on to suggest fellow chocolate addicts consider the 1kg chocolate block to share. “It comes with a wooden tray and a mallet. A nice combination of fun and indulgence. That said, the Discovery Boxes, which contain a large selection of bonbons – pralinés à l’ancienne, single-origin and flavoured ganaches – are a pleasant option to satisfy everyone’s preferences. And this season we have created a Christmas Box, adorned with Agathe Singer’s illustration, and containing a mix of classic and exclusive flavours.”

Ms Freddie Janssen is the founder, owner and chef of London’s recently launched bastion of tantalising casual dining, Snackbar. Having honed her hospitality nous at modern British restaurant Lyle’s and written a pickling bible, Pickled, she’s now getting to grips with feeding a steady stream of Hackney locals while looking after the co-working space atop her bright and airy café and catering for select events. The latter provide her with the opportunity to polish crowd-pleasing recipes, such as succulent Singapore crab, below.

She’s planning on doing some serious entertaining between Christmas and New Year. “It’s so nice to get a big group of people together to drink really nice wine, eat awesome food and talk till midnight,” she says. “I’ll start a couple of weeks ahead, work out what a nice dinner would be, then break it down in terms of where I order or purchase things; plenty of last-minute Borough Market trips. It’s so cosy. For me, most of the fun goes into coming up with the menu and sourcing it. I always go a bit overboard. Last year, I did caviar with fried chicken, which is a XU recipe. It’s a process, but I enjoy it.”

Ms Janssen also plans to batch-make bread and butter pickles, prepare Ms Nigella Lawson’s cult Coca-Cola ham recipe, stock up on St John’s Eccles cakes and shave her merry way round a tête de moine (monk’s head) cheese, accompanied by shop-bought membrillo or quince paste. “Having made it myself a few times, I know what a nightmare it is – how little you get out of so much work.”

For the dill pickle seasoning:

• 2 tsp dehydrated dill (use dill seed if you don’t have a dehydrator)
• 1 tbsp coriander seeds
• 1 tbsp salt
• ½ tsp salt
• ½ tsp mustard seeds
• ½ tsp garlic powder
• ½ tsp onion powder
• ½ tsp citric acid

For the popcorn:

• Popping corn
• Vegetable oil
• Butter, melted

First make the dill pickle seasoning. Put all ingredients in a food processor and blitz until fine.

Pop the corn kernels in a splash of hot oil until done, then pour melted butter and dill pickle powder all over and toss until well coated. 

For the vegetable stock:

• 2 onions, skin on, cut in half
• 2 carrots
• 4 sticks of celery, cut into chunks
• 2 leeks
• 4 sprigs thyme
• 1 bunch parsley
• 6 peppercorns

For adobo:

• 3 tbsp olive oil
• Half an onion, chopped roughly
• 1 garlic clove
• 6 deveined guajillo chillis
• 2 deceived papilla chillis
• 2 cloves
• 4 tomatoes, cut into quarters
• 1 tsp salt

For the pumpkin and mushroom mix:

• Half a pumpkin, seeds and strings scooped out
• 2 tbsp vegetable oil, plus extra for brushing
• Salt, to taste
• 100g onion, diced
• 1kg mushrooms (I like to use chanterelles with common mushrooms to bulk it out)
• Adobo (see above)

For the masa:

• 1 tbsp salt
• ½ tsp baking powder
• 80g vegetable shortening, melted (hot)
• 2kg fresh corn masa (you can order this from mextrade.co.uk)
• 1 litre vegetable stock (hot)

To assemble:

• 20 corn husks
• Toppings of your choice. I like to use a combination of lime and agave pickled red onion, crème fraîche and goat’s cheese

To make the vegetable stock, put all the ingredients in a large pot and cover with 2 litres water. Bring to the boil and reduce to a simmer and cook for 2 hours. Pass through a sieve.

Now make the adobo. Heat the oil in a small saucepan over a high heat, add the onion and garlic and cook for 10 minutes. Add the chillis and cook until they’re transparent, then add the cloves, tomatoes and salt. Cook until the tomatoes are mushy, 5-10 minutes. Blitz the adobo in a food processor and pass through a fine mesh strainer.

Preheat the oven to 175ºC and line a baking sheet with parchment. Brush the pumpkin flesh with oil, sprinkle with salt and place flesh side up on the baking sheet. Bake for 45 minutes or until a fork easily pierces the pumpkin flesh. Leave to cool for 10 minutes, then scoop out the flesh and chop into 1cm squares.

Heat 2tbsp oil in a medium saucepan and add the onion. Cook for a few minutes until translucent. Add the mushrooms and sauté until they’re fully cooked. Now add the pumpkin and adobo mix, cook for a few minutes and season to taste.

Finally, the masa. Add salt, baking powder and hot vegetable shortening to the masa dough and mix thoroughly. Add the hot vegetable broth little by little and mix and knead the masa by hand for 15 minutes. You are looking for a consistency that resembles Play-Doh.

Now to assemble. Lay out the corn husks on a large clean work surface. Put 90g masa in the middle of each husk and spread with a spatula, leaving 2-3cm clean at the edge. Add 1 tbsp pumpkin and mushroom filling in the middle of the masa. Fold into a roll, using strips of corn husk to close the tamal like a present. Cook the tamales in a steamer for about 1 hour or until they’re firm and fully cooked.

Once ready to serve, either unfold the tamales and place them on individual plates with pickles, cream and cheese. Alternatively, keep them all folded and pop them into a big bowl and serve alongside small bowls of the garnish so people can serve themselves.

• 1kg crab
• 1 tbsp cornflour
• 8 tbsp sunflower oil
• 3 shallots, minced
• 2 tbsp ginger, grated
• 6 garlic cloves, minced
• 5 bird’s eye chillies, minced
• 2 cups fish stock
• 1 tbsp fermented soybean paste
• 8 tbsp tomato paste
• 8 tbsp sweet chilli sauce
• 1 tbsp sugar
• 1 tbsp tamarind
• Salt, to taste
• 1 egg, beaten
• 4 spring onions, sliced

First, clean the crab. Scrub the shell, cut into quarters and crack the shell slightly.

In a small bowl, mix the cornflour with 2 tbsp water and set aside.

In a large pot, heat the oil and add the shallots, ginger, garlic and chillies. Cook until fragrant. Add the crab and fish stock, increase the heat and bring to a boil. Cover the pot, simmer until the crab has turned red and is cooked, about 5 minutes.

Remove the lid and stir in the soybean paste, tomato paste, chilli sauce, sugar and tamarind. Simmer and season with salt. Stir in the cornstarch and bring to boil.

Remove the pot from the heat and drop in the egg. Garnish with spring onions.

Instrumental in London’s vibrant present-day wine scene and the gent behind a trio of its most exhilarating dining spaces – P. Franco, Bright and Peg – Mr Phil Bracey of Noble Fine Liquor will be heading back to Australia this Christmas. Right off the plane, he’ll stop off at the warehouse of his friend’s online bottle shop, Drnks, to collect a selection of first-rate minimal-intervention bottles. Below, he shares his tips for the best booze to see you through from Boxing Day to New Year’s Eve, beginning with an aperitif (for any time of day) in the guise of Mauro Vergano’s Americano. “It’s essentially a red wine-based vermouth using grignolino,” he says. “I sometimes describe it as a fancy Campari, with less sweetness and with a bit more intensity of bitterness and herbs. That on ice, or with a dash of soda, some herbs or a little orange through it pleases everybody.”

Mr Bracey suggests stocking up on pét nats. “My favourite producer is Jean-Pierre Robinot from the Loire Valley. His wines have had quite a long fermentation. They are cellared in limestone caves, so they can go on for ages. He’s an incredible producer. It’s still dry, but they’re energetic styles of wine. These ones are a slightly cheaper alternative to champagne, but they’re at the top end of the pét nat scale – still jovial and celebratory.”

If you want a versatile wine to go with an array of food, from the seafood served at summer Christmases to the poultry favoured in chillier climes, Mr Bracey speaks highly of Feints, a deep rosé from the Ruth Lewandowski winery in California. “It’s an easy blend of barbera, nebbiolo, dolcetto and arneis.”

Orange, or skin contact, wine is a smart option to have on standby. With the relatives safely back home, it won’t scare the proverbial horses. Mr Bracey particularly recommends wines by Mr Jean-Marc Dreyer in Alsace. “He does a maceration with a muscat, which can be hugely floral and opulent. Just jumps out the glass, but it’s still dry,” he says. “It has candied fruits, yet it can go across roast duck or chicken, or pick up the caramelisation of roast potatoes and still transfer into desserts.” He’s also fond of wines by Savoie-based Jean-Yves Péron, which recently released a new muscat and XX-blend, La Tour de XX. “I like aromatic varietals done with a bit of maceration, because it turns it from being this fruit bomb to something with more acid, tannin and structure,” says Mr Bracey. “Again, it can handle pork, duck and richer fish, but it can also be something you sit with as it evolves in the glass over a few hours.”

As for sipping-on wines for those laziest of days, Mr Bracey recommends light but complex reds. “I tend to look towards beaujolais,” he says. “Fleurie – that delicate, pretty style – is a regular go-to of mine and a nice alternative to drinking burgundy without the associated price tag. Beaujolais still struggles because everyone assumes it’s beaujolais nouveau or that it’s overly fruity or one dimensional, whereas it can be done in a burgundian style, so it still has the structure that makes it a quality wine.” What should we look out for? “Julie Balagny, a very small production with a lot of old vines that she gets minute amounts from that she ends up putting together. My current favourite of hers is B...j.l..s 2018. It’s a young thing to drink, but it comes through deliciously.” Mr Bracey also enjoys beaujolais by Michel Guignier Wines. “He tends to vinify until they end up around 11 or 11.5 per cent ABV, so they can be a little tense, tight and fresh, but that can be nice. They can also be quite reductive at first, so I’d decant a bit. Beaujolais loves a decant. Well, good ones, the old-vine ones and crus.”

When pairing with cheese, Mr Bracey likes the classic combination of nutty comté and white Jura varietals such as savagnin and chardonnay. “The whites from Jura can be quite developed, although the acid profile’s great,” he says. “The wines by Fabrice Dodane, who goes under Domaine de Saint-Pierre, are really nutty and quite high in alcohol – 14-plus per cent vins jaunes. Those tend to be expensive, so you get other guys who toy with oxidisation in their white wines, and those prices can be fantastic. François Rousett-Martin, who is based in Château Chalon, plays around with oxidation to get his whites into that almost vin jaune territory. They have that nutty, sherry-esque nose.”

Finally, for those who dislike wine or would prefer to mix in a British drink, Mr Bracey sees huge potential in the “incredibly interesting” nascent minimal-intervention boutique-cider landscape, especially fermented apple tipples by Skyborry, such as a pommage christened Waiting For The Miracle, and Wilding Cider’s Babouche.