Like millions of Russians, I too have Ukrainian roots, and grew up on a beautiful diet of Ukrainian and Russian dishes. These countries have shared a complex and rich history, and the culinary language reflects this relationship in the most powerful and relatable way.

food to raise How Russian and Ukrainian friends are using food to raise

Olia’s latest two cookbooks with Bloomsbury are Summer Kitchens, a book that explores Ukrainian regional cooking and Home Food, an ode to cooking for her family. 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. 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. Put the paprika in a small bowl. Put the sunflower oil in a small frying pan, add the garlic, then heat over a low heat, swirling the pan gently. As soon as you see some of the garlic turning golden, reduce the heat or switch it off entirely, and keep swirling until most of the garlic has turned pale gold. Do not let it go too brown or it will taste acrid. As soon as the garlic colour is good, pour the oil and garlic over the paprika in the bowl.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. Add the pomegranate molasses and vinegar (or lemon juice) to the bowl of pomegranate juice and season well with sea salt.

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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. Take a large spoonful of the egg white mixture and fold it quite vigorously into the butter and cheese mixture, to loosen it up. Gently fold in the rest of the egg white mixture, then pour over the apples in the cake tin. Bake for 30 minutes, or until the cake is a little wobbly, but not liquid: it will set more firmly as it cools. 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 Hercules has appeared on Saturday Kitchen, [10] [11] Sunday Brunch, [12] and Christopher Kimball's Milk Street Television.Squeeze the juice form half of the pomegranate seeds. Put them in a sieve over a bowl and squeeze with your hands so the juice funds into the bowl. Keep the seeds from the other half of the pomegranate. Like the best home cooking, it is barely a recipe, ready to bend to whatever ingredients are around, forgiving if measurements are eyeballed, and happy to hang out in the fridge for days. In this excerpt, Hercules tells us how to make it. 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.