The Christmas season is finally upon us. While it's nice to make reservations at a restaurant offering roast beef or turkey to enjoy a heartwarming time with loved ones, a home party is a great way to relax and enjoy delicious meat for a special occasion.

Even if you're not confident in your cooking skills, you can still make the most of it by purchasing ingredients at the Fresh Market on the first basement floor of the main building of Isetan Shinjuku, where an unparalleled selection of meats is available. You can create restaurant-quality dishes at home.

To help you with this, I'S MEAT SELECTION's exclusive chef, Harumi Iwata, offers this powerful advice: "By using high-quality ingredients and cooking carefully, anyone can easily create delicious dishes. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask, and I'll even help with the preparation."

Iwata's top recommendation this winter is the French chicken "Cocle" (1,000 yen per chicken). The tender meat has a clean taste, and can be enjoyed with just salt and pepper. "Simply cut open the back and breast with kitchen scissors, then add olive oil, salt, and pepper and bake. If you're using an oven, cook it at 200 degrees for 30 minutes. If you don't have an oven, you can also cook it in a frying pan." Coarse-grained salt is best, as it brings out the umami and sweetness of the meat. As it's the perfect size for two people, a light seasoning means you can enjoy it all the way to the end.

If you want to make steak, a classic Christmas dish, as your main dish, the trick is to vary the amount of oil depending on the type of meat. "Marbled Wagyu beef tastes better when grilled with just olive oil, while lean Western beef is richer and more delicious when grilled with olive oil and butter. While grilling, make sure to keep the heat simmering over medium heat to avoid burning the butter. You can't go wrong if you adjust the heat while checking visually that the butter has turned into a mousse."

Also, to ensure an even temperature at the top and bottom while cooking, you'll want to try out this professional technique of scooping melted olive oil or butter from the frying pan and pouring it over the top of the meat.

Once grilled, it's important to use the residual heat from the frying pan to transfer the heat to the inside without immediately placing the meat on a plate. When you actually measure the inside temperature with a core thermometer, it will gradually rise from 20°C to 50°C. Incidentally, 28°C is very rare and 58°C is medium rare. "Internal thermometers are available for around 4,000 yen, so if you like cooking meat at home, it's a good idea to have one."

After the meat has been heated sufficiently and is then arranged on a plate, sprinkle salt on top and let it marry in your mouth. The coarsely ground pepper pops in your mouth, and the salt brings out the sweetness, taking the flavor to the next level, so be sure to give it a try.

Also, if you're busy at work on Christmas Eve and don't have enough time to cook, just slice the foie gras pate (5,400 yen) and place it on a brioche. The foie gras, accented with the dried persimmons trapped inside, is sure to bring smiles to the faces of all your family and friends.

"We do our best to help our customers experience the joy of cooking at home. Not only do we stock ingredients that allow you to recreate professional flavors at home with just a little extra effort, but we are always happy to answer any questions you may have about ingredients, so please feel free to ask us anything. Just as the word "delicious" describes delicious food, delicious food is also beautiful to look at. We will continue to support each and every one of our customers so that they can create dishes that will make those who eat them happy."