However advantage of cooking directly on rungs is that air circulates freely round joint, ensuring even cooking, and you can remove roasting tin to make your gravy while leaving meat where it is. Of course, if you do that, you will want to put some kind of drip tray under joint, but any ovenproof dish will do for that.

Temperatures and cooking times

Using my method (actually it’s Graham Kerr’s method which I’ve adopted but what heck) you don’t need to learn a lot of complicated temperature/time formulas. Cook your red meat at 350°F,180°c,gas mark 4.

Cook poultry at 325°F,160°c,gas mark 3.

Calculate your cooking time as 30 minutes for every 500 grams (roughly 1lb) of meat. This will produce thoroughly cooked poultry, beef that is well cooked on outside and rare inside, pink lamb and pork (yes you can safely eat ‘underdone’ pork providing internal temperature reaches 145°F. The danger bug is trichinae, which dies at temperatures greater than 135°F).

Remember to add an extra 30 minutes if you are using stuffing.

If you want to change anything – alter your cooking times accordingly but beware. There is a very thin line between meat that is well done and boot leather. If rare meat is more than you can handle, it’s a much better idea to use my cooking times but then turn oven off and leave meat in it for a further 30 minutes or so.

Which brings me to one more point; it’s very important to let meat stand for at least 20 minutes before carving.

Why? Because when you heat protein (which is what meat is) it shrinks and toughens. Allowing it to relax and cool a little restores some of its elasticity.

However it will continue to cook for a while after leaving oven and internal temperature will increase by as much as a further 10 degrees. Which is why you need a good 20 minutes resting time.

Just keep it in a warm place with a sheet of cooking foil over top while you prepare greens and gravy.

No matter which type of cork you choose, it is important that you are able to recognize whether wine has been properly sealed or not. A useful test is to see whether top of cork is level with top of bottle; if it isn't, then that particular bottle of wine is probably best avoided.

If a traditional cork breaks when you are removing it - don't panic! Use a corkscrew to attempt to 'dig out' remaining cork. If this fails, simply push remains of cork down into bottle. Contrary to popular belief, this will not destroy wine's flavor. You may have to fish out a few bits of cork, but taste of wine should remain unaffected. However, you'd be wise to finish whole bottle, under these circumstances!

When choosing your wine, base your decision on wine itself and not type of cork. Resist temptation to be a cork snob; a screw top bottle may just give you a pleasant surprise