Jamie's Christmas with Bells On

Jamie: "This is the most underrated vegetable in the whole of the United Kingdom. It's available in every single supermarket, we walk past it all the time, and yet we still take no notice of it. It's an incredible vegetable, it's really good for you and you only need to use 2 or 3 ingredients to bring it to life and blow people's socks off."

Serves 8 to 10 as a side

• 1 celeriac (roughly 1kg)
• olive oil
• a few sprigs of fresh lemon thyme
• sea salt

1. Shave off the celeriac ends and throw them away, then use your knife to peel away the outside skin, cutting away any cracks and crannies as you go. Once you've cut the edge you'll be able to see the thickness of the skin you need to peel away. Chop the celeriac up into slices, then into rough 1cm cubes.

2. Put a casserole-type pan on a medium-high heat and add a lug of olive oil. Rip in the lemon thyme - the smells from this will be outrageous - then go straight in with the diced celeriac and a generous pinch of salt. Turn the heat down to medium, pop the lid on and cook for 20 to 25 minutes, or until tender. Make sure you keep it moving - you want it to fry lightly from the bottom, and kind of steam in its own moisture.

3. At this stage, you have two choices. You can either serve it up blonde or you can take the lid off and fry for a further 4 minutes or so, to take the colour much darker. This is such a flexible recipe, you can make it the day before and reheat when you need, or you can blitz it up with some stock for a delicious soup. Give it a try.