Home Food: Recipes from the founder of #CookForUkraine

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Cut the florets off the broccoli, then trim the tougher outer layer off the stalk. Cut the sweet inner core of the stalk into slices about the same size as the florets. Mamushka came out of a big jumble of things that were happening to me in 2014. I lost my job, I was a single mum, my son Sasha was nearly two years old. I was alone in the UK with no job and no prospects. Parallel to that, the Maidan [uprising] happens and the war starts in the Crimea. So it began, actually, as me writing down names of recipes in my notebook as a way of just doing something, and not sitting around and plunging myself into depression. Then I ended up getting this book deal, miraculously, everything came together. I never looked for an agent or to publish, it was just for me. Put four tablespoons of oil in a large frying pan over a medium heat – it should cover the base of the pan, so add a little more, if need be.

Home Food by Olia Hercules | Waterstones

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. Thomson, Alice. "Olia Hercules: 'My parents are surrounded. There is no way out of the country' ". The Times. ISSN 0140-0460 . Retrieved 2022-03-07. Pour the oil into a cast-iron casserole set over a medium-high heat. Once the oil is sizzling, add the onion, carrots, celeriac, celery and leek, and saute, stirring from time to time, for about five minutes: you want them to become caramelised in parts, but not scorched. (If the pan feels too crowded, fry the vegetables in batches.) Add the garlic and cook, still stirring, for about two minutes, until fragrant and starting to colour.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 Exotic, earthy dishes, vibrant colours, big flavours. This is real cooking, written about with so much love’ Diana Henry Whaite, John (2015-06-21). "Olia Hercules: the chef bringing East European food to our tables". Telegraph.co.uk . Retrieved 15 December 2016. Cut or break the cauliflower into small florets, keeping any small leaves, too. Blanch the cauliflower and its leaves in a pan of boiling, salted water: take out the leaves after about two minutes and the florets after five. Refresh both in cold water, then drain well and pat dry with kitchen paper. Heat the oven to 200C (180C fan)/390F/gas 6 and grease a 20cm square or round cake tin with butter. Lay the apples in the base of the tin.

Olia Hercules’ comfort food Dips, kebabs and crisp spuds: Olia Hercules’ comfort food

Put the butter and 150g caster sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment and whisk until fairly fluffy. Break the egg yolks with a fork and gradually add them to the mix, whisking them in well as you go, then whisk in the vanilla extract and cheese. Transfer the mixture to another bowl, then fold in the semolina or polenta (if you use the latter, you’ll will get a cake with more texture). Each recipe has a story, making this a fascinating read as well as a stunning cookbook” BBC Good Food Russian chef joins forces with Ukrainian best friend to serve food across frontiers". the Guardian. 2022-03-06 . Retrieved 2022-03-07.Summer Kitchens Inside Ukraine's Hidden Places of Cooking and Sanctuary (Weldon Owen, July 14, 2020) [15] Olia Hercules (born 1984) [1] is a London-based Ukrainian chef, food writer and food stylist. In response to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine she initiated a programme of fundraising, for individuals and for UNICEF. One hundred recipes make for a substantial book and there is a great deal to keep home cooks in the kitchen throughout the year. It being summer, I opted for a variety of salads which I served on the patio for an al fresco dinner. I served the salads with a dish of Hercules’ red rice which was quite a revelation. This is a great example of home cooking – a simple dish with no frills which is cheap to cook and a real crowd-pleaser. To add further value, Hercules includes a recipe for how to cook the leftovers. And please, make extra so that there will be leftovers for this too was delicious.

Home Food – Olia Hercules

For the potatoes, put a pot of water on the hob, season well with salt and add the whole potatoes, skins and all. Boil them until they are very soft, but not completely disintegrated (20-30 minutes, depending on size). Drain them and leave to cool enough so you don’t burn your hand. If I can, I will take them outside to speed up the cooling. Alissa Timoshkina and Olia Hercules: ‘Food is an important tool for education,’ Timoshkina says, ‘a basic thing that everyone can relate to. What better way to learn about a people than through their food?’ Photograph: Tania Naiden Recent events have rejigged so many family dynamics. My brother Sasha ended up moving to Kyiv from Lviv, and living in the same flat as his older son, Nikita, and his fiancee, Yana. Nikita is a very good meat cook, often roasting big slabs of this or that. My brother, however, who also loves cooking, really missed vegetables, so he started making this salad, which is hearty, because of the cooked aubergines and cheese, and fresh, because of the tomatoes. It’s the simplest thing with a short ingredients list, but it’s full of flavour and hits all your vegetable needs. Sasha calls it his Armenian salad but, to me, it is my brother’s. Home Food takes readers on a culinary journey through the places Hercules has lived and the influences this has had on the food she enjoys cooking and eating at home. She grew up in Ukraine, moved as a child to Cyprus and as a student to the UK where she studied Italian and International Relations. Her language studies took her on to Italy for a year abroad. Later she trained as a chef and began to write.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. Buryk, Michael. "Ukrainian British chef and author offers a fresh look at Ukrainian cuisine". The Ukrainian Weekly . Retrieved 2021-10-09. Cut the tomatoes into chunks over a serving bowl, to catch the juices, then mix with the aubergines, remaining olive oil, the sesame oil, the onions and their juices, herbs and feta, and serve. Potatoes of my childhood

Olia Hercules Books – Olia Hercules

I cannot emphasise enough that you need a lot of fat to make a super-juicy kebab, so use the fattiest minced lamb you can find. Acclaimed Ukrainian chef and food writer Olia Hercules shares 100 comforting recipes that can unite us no matter where we are from and where we end up. Grate the onions into a large bowl on the coarse side of a grater, making sure to catch the juices. Add the mince, turmeric, bicarbonate of soda (it helps the meat to bind together), half a teaspoon of salt and a teaspoon of ground pepper, and mix. And I mean really mix it: get your hands in there and massage and work it. After four minutes of such manipulations, if you have time, cover and chill for 30 minutes (or overnight). This will help it hold together. It might be confusing, at a time like this, to see all these beautiful pictures of food being circulated,” Timoshkina says, “but food is an important tool for education, a basic thing that everyone can relate to. What better way to learn about a people than through their food?” For her, leading #CookForUkraine is an act of defiance; she is, she says, at once “extremely ashamed to be Russian” and “determined to distinguish Russia from Putin”. She emphasises the common ground between Ukraine and Russia, once again illustrated by food: “Our tastebuds show that we are more alike than apart,” she says.Wash and dry the mixer bowl and whisk attachment, then add the egg whites and whisk until they start frothing up. Add the remaining 50g caster sugar and the salt, and keep whisking to soft peaks. Meanwhile, whisk the eggs with the yoghurt or milk and season quite generously. You want the egg mixture to become really voluminous, so use an electric whisk if you have one. Heat the milk in a small pan until it begins to steam, then pour into a bowl. This should cool it enough safely to add the gelatine. Squeeze the water out of the gelatine, then whisk the leaves into the milk, so they dissolve. Next, whisk in the honey until it, too, dissolves. When the milk has cooled down to just warm (so the kefir won’t split and make your jelly grainy), stir in the ryazhanka or kefir and add the vanilla, if using (taste the mixture first before you decide; I prefer mine without). 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. When I was giving birth to my son, Sasha, my first child, the midwives were like, “Are you OK?” And I was like, “I’m a chef! I’ve done 18-hour shifts at Ottolenghi, I can do this!” And I did. It was a really fast, efficient birth. Working in a busy restaurant kitchen definitely gives you insane stamina, for sure. You learn and your body learns it as well.