Welcome to Kitchen Queries, where the nigella.com team will answer your cooking or food related questions.  We’d love you to submit some of your recipe problems, dilemmas or queries for us to get our teeth into!

Please note, we are only able to answer questions selected for publication and aren't able to enter into personal correspondence.

• oven temps given in Nigella's books

  I am cooking the turkey following your suggestions for pre-soaking (ref: Nigella's Christmas). Are the oven temps given for fan or conventional oven, and is fan preferable to conventional?

  Hi, I have two of Nigella's books, but I cannot seem to find anywhere whether the oven temperatures are for fan assisted ovens or conventional ovens. Can you help?

  Posted by Carpe diem. Answered on 13th Dec 2010 at 12.00

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• Slow Cooker Christmas Pudding

  We have made the Nigella Christmas pudding, we used the old-fashioned method and cooked the pudding in muslin. We cooked it over night in the slow cooker (about 10 hours) in water. When we pealed the muslin off, we can still see small amounts of suet. Does this mean it has not cooked enough? Can we remedy this problem? Many thanks. Lx

  Posted by Bellarose. Answered on 12th Dec 2010 at 12.00

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• steaming christmas puddings

  I just steamed a batch of xmas puds. I used plastic pudding basins with snap on lids, and a circle of grease proof paper under the lid. I didn't wrap them as Nigella suggests, I didn't think of it, and I only steamed them for five hours (I wanted to get a second batch on). Now I am worried they will be dried and/or undercooked. Does wrapping make a big difference? and is eight hours steaming really any better than five?

  Posted by cookaleekie. Answered on 11th Dec 2010 at 12.00

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