Home Food: Recipes from the founder of #CookForUkraine

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Melt 25g of the butter in a frying pan on a medium heat, add the apples and cook for two to three minutes on each side, until they start to turn golden. Sprinkle in the brown sugar, cook the apples for another minute on each side, until caramelised, then transfer to a bowl and leave to cool slightly. Olia lives in London with her sons Sasha and Wilf, and husband – fellow food writer and photographer Joe Woodhouse, writing, cooking and feeding her unceasing curiosity by researching food culture and culinary traditions of countries less explored. You might not think you would be interested in a book celebrating the food and flavours of the Caucasus…but you would be wrong. Olia Hercules is a great storyteller who will take you on a journey through the region without you ever having to leave the sofa” Sunday Time Ireland

Home Food: 100 Recipes to Comfort and Connect: Ukraine Home Food: 100 Recipes to Comfort and Connect: Ukraine

A real step down from the author's previous books - if I had to rank them, it would be Mamushka > Summer Kitchens > Kaukasis > Home Food. With beautiful photography and writing on the people and lush landscapes of Ukraine, this book will transport you to idyllic summer kitchens past and present. Praise for Summer Kitchens It's a window to a country's or region's culture, history, politics, and every recipe has a very personal story behind it," Ms Timoshkina told ITV News. Add two and a half litres of cold water and the bay leaf, season lightly with salt and bring to a boil. Turn down to a simmer and cook, partially covered, for about 40 minutes. Centering comfort and connection, acclaimed Ukranian chef Olia Hercules weaves influence from her childhood in Eastern Europe and years in Cyprus, Italy, and London into 100 recipes. Dishes like radish and pomegranate salad, roasted potatoes topped with feta, yogurt, dill, and chopped carrots, and baked apples stuffed with creamy tvorog or ricotta get woven together with stories that make her fourth cookbook her most personal yet.”Her second cookbook is called Kaukasis: a culinary journey through Georgia, Azerbaijan and beyond. It was published on August 10th in the UK and Australia and in October 2017 in the US, Canada, Germany and Poland. Put the butter and oil in the largest, deepest frying pan you have (mine’s a 26cm deep stainless-steel one) on a medium-high heat, until sizzling. Carefully drop in all the potatoes, add a generous pinch of salt and stir once to distribute it evenly. Leave the potatoes be for a few minutes, then stir in one big sweep and leave them alone again. Be patient: give the potatoes at the bottom time to catch and crisp up a bit. The whole process will take about 15 minutes, by which time the potatoes should be crisp and brown in parts. When Russia invaded Ukraine, I couldn’t eat. And I definitely couldn’t cook for the first month and a half. It was the feeling of guilt. I just felt, “How can I even cook anything when there’s such horror happening everywhere else in Ukraine?” Then, at the first event I did for #CookForUkraine, this woman I’d never met before came up to me and said, “I’ve brought you some broth.” I heated it up at home and had it out of a cup and it was just so life-giving. Then she started sending me a broth every week, and she’s been doing it for two months now. And that’s what I’ve been sustaining myself on.

Olia Hercules

Add the pomegranate molasses and vinegar (or lemon juice) to the bowl of pomegranate juice and season well with sea salt. Hercules’ cookbooks are special not only because of her recipes – many of which are new to readers in the UK – but also due to her evocative writing. Many cookbooks these days have essays written alongside the recipes but not everyone has the skilled writing style of Hercules. She is a natural storyteller who enables the reader to feel they are sitting under the trees with the Hercules family eating a summer feast. Hercules has written movingly about her family so that we feel we know them. Followers of her social media account have been kept up to date with recent events in Ukraine and the challenges facing her family and friends. I wondered whether it might be rather trite to review a cookbook under these circumstances. Still, perhaps at times of stress – political and personal – the ability of food to unite and comfort is as important as ever. My death-row, apocalypse dish would be my mum’s Ukrainian dumplings called varenyky, which are filled with her homemade cheese that we call syr. It just wires some really crazy things in my brain and makes me release all of the endorphins. Recommending books is always a profound pleasure, and that’s really why CookbookCorner exists. But I have to admit that I do get a bit flustered and anxious when so many great titles come out on the same day. I’d normally expect that in September and October, but now summer seems to be equally crowded on the cookbook front; indeed, the proliferation of titles seems all-year-round. I’d much rather highlight a book in the week it’s published, but it isn’t always possible. As it is, I’ve still got quite a few books lined up to tell you about that have already been published, but I will stop fussing about what’s not been written about (yet) and focus on the real belter I have for you today!I only really realised the scope of my mum and my dad’s skills after I trained to be a chef. Watching Mum make filo pastry, stretching it out with her hands, then spinning it around in the air like a pizzaiolo – it’s like she’s spinning webs. I know loads of professional chefs who would not be able to do that. Stewart, Victoria (2015-06-22). "Meet Olia Hercules, the ex-Ottolenghi chef putting Ukrainian food on the map in London". The Evening Standard . Retrieved 14 December 2016.