Ricky Gervais mocks Jamie Oliver for Christmas dinner tip: ‘How is that a recipe?’

Oliver recommends placing a hot clementine inside your turkey’s cavity – but Gervais is not convinced

Ricky Gervais wasn’t impressed by Jamie Oliver’s Christmas turkey hack, which he showed off on the latest episode of The Graham Norton Show.

Gervais and Oliver were joined on the famous big red sofa Friday (8 December) by actors Paapa Essiedu and Julianne Moore.

During one segment, Norton showed the audience a teaser from Oliver’s forthcoming TV special, Jamie’s Christmas Shortcuts.

The short clip shows the chef securing a bay leaf to a clementine using a clove to stab the fruit. Oliver then microwaves the clementine until piping hot before placing it inside his raw turkey’s cavity.

After the snippet ended, Norton responded enthusiastically, saying: “I mean, we’re doing that; we’re all doing that!”

Gervais, however, was less impressed. “Sorry, how is that a recipe?” the comic asked. “Stick an orange, up a turkey’s arse. How is that a recipe?”

Jamie Oliver (left) and Ricky Gervais on ‘The Graham Norton Show’ (BBC)

Oliver and Gervais began laughing together with the latter asking: “Was that an outtake?”

Defending himself, Oliver explained: “Basically, when you’re roasting a turkey, which is quite a hard thing to cook... It’s always about hot airflow to make it cook nicely. So, if you get a nice citrus – what is the citrus of Christmas? Clementine. Bit of clove and bay – in the microwave, up the jacksie, then you’re cooking in the inside and the outside. And its spritzing it with the scent of Christmas.”

Gervais didn’t seem to be convinced, though, bursting into another fit of laughter.

“I’m just turning into a cartoon of myself,” Oliver said, sounding defeated.

Elsewhere in the episode, Oliver admitted he found it difficult to watch actors pretending to be chefs on film or television.

“I’ve got to get back into The Bear,” Oliver said of Hulu’s popular kitchen drama starring Jeremy Allen White as chef Carmy who inherits his family’s Chicago sandwich shop.

“I watched the first two [episodes] – and I know it’s brilliant, everyone keeps telling me how brilliant it is – but I watched the first two and I’m like, ‘He can’t chop.’

“They just jump cut it and cut around it,” the celebrity chef continued. “And they often get extras in the background that are actors not chefs, even though they’ve got no lines. But they’re just touching it all wrong and sort of bashing it all wrong... Yeah, it does wind me up.”

It has previously been reported that White spent 10 days training at the Institute of Culinary Education (ICE) in preparation for taking on the role of Carmy.

Jamie’s Christmas Shortcuts is a two-part series and will air on Channel 4 with the first episode out Monday 11 December at 8pm followed by the second on Monday 18 December, also at 8pm.