All my family are big curry fans. I'd like to add some festive Indian food flavours to the Christmas table. Can you help? Gary Streed, Amersham

Times Online's Indian food expert Anjum Anand responds: Christmas is back and we are faced with that age-old question of what to cook. Some love the rituals of preparing and cooking their favourite Christmas meal while others feel the need to innovate. I am not sure which category you fall into but there seem to be three routes you can go down.

SPICE UP YOUR FAVOURITES
First off, you can spice up your family favourites. If you are a traditional family, spice up your eggnog with cinnamon, clove and nutmeg powder and sweeten with jaggery. Flavour your turkey with a paste of ginger, garlic, lemon juice, garam masala, cumin powder, seasoning and some oil or butter. Spread it well all over the turkey, getting under the skin when you can so the flavours can really get into the meat. Place on a bed of sliced onions and cook as normal (the resulting stock will be delicious).

For the gravy: fry 2 cloves, 1 black cardamom pod, 10 black peppercorns, 1” cinnamon stick followed by ½ sliced onion, ginger and garlic and when soft add your stock or giblets and finish as you normally do. Strain before you serve.

Anjum Anand's easy lime biscuits

Delicious recipes from Anjum's New Indian book and latest BBC TV series

• Anjum Anand's Keralan chicken

• Anjum Anand's lamb pilaff

Anjum Anand's Keralan chicken

Delicious recipes from Anjum's New Indian book and latest BBC TV series

Related Links

• Anjum's top Indian bites

Or simply serve a plain turkey with spicy accompaniments. Cook your potatoes with Indian spices. Brussels sprouts taste amazing when shredded and stir fried with brown mustard seeds, dried red chilli and curry leaves and a final flourish of crushed peanuts or grated coconut (see my cabbage recipe in Indian Food Made Easy). You will be able to feel the warmth of the sun beating down on your back by serving the turkey with fresh, spicy coconut chutney instead of bread sauce. I have just gotten started and already I want to invite everyone over for dinner.

SERVE A CELEBRATORY CURRY
You say you are a curry fan and I wonder if what you really want is proper Indian food. If this is the case, your second option will take you to browsing in cookbooks that you like and see if any of the recipes jump out and wish you a Merry Christmas. There are many Yuletide-singing vegetable dishes that would be perfect this time of the year. For Indians one of the most celebratory dishes would be a Biryani, a rice and meat dish which would stand proud on any table and with the addition of a drizzle of saffron infused milk it is truly special (have a look at the Herb Chicken Biryani in Anjum’s New Indian, you can substitute the chicken for turkey).

TAKE A TIP FROM THE SOUTH
The last route is to look to India for inspiration. Christianity, supposedly, made its way there as early as the first century AD. The two largest Christian communities are to be found in Kerala and Goa and both celebrate with their own special favourites.

In Kerala this means a fish or meat curry, roast duck or appams, and a spongy rice based pancake which is dipped into a delicious spiced, coconut lamb stew. Keralans make Avial, a mixture of winter vegetables spiced with mustard seeds and curry leaves (known as Southern Indian Vegetables in Indian Food Made Easy).

Goans stick to their favourites, Sorpotel, pork vindaloo, stuffed fish or fish curry served with rice or their local bread. Both communities make lots of Christmas sweets, biscuits and cakes. Bebinca is a 16-layer majestic cake that takes pride on the table and doubles as a wonderful spiced Christmas cake. A recipe for a festive cake in my cookbook Anjum’s New Indian uses nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves and ginger, as well as raisins and dates soaked in rum and cashew nuts for texture.

I hope one of these options has captured your imagination and that you have been inspired to add a little bit of India to your Christmas table this year. Whichever way you go, I wish you all a very merry Christmas.

Watch recipe videos:

Anjum Anand's Tandoori Monkfish

Anjum Anand's My Chicken Korma

Anjum Anand's Simple North Indian Fish Curry

Anjum Anand's Pomegranate Raita

More Anjum Anand recipes

For more tips visit www.anjumanand.co.uk

E-mail your questions for Anjum to the Real Food editor: nick.wyke@thetimes.co.uk

Times Recommends

• Top Ten most searched for recipes
• Chalet Chef 2010: the winning menus
• Gin and pomegranate jellies