Mamushka: Recipes from Ukraine & beyond

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Olia was born in Ukraine and lived in Cyprus before moving to the UK to study a BA in Italian, followed by an MA in Russian and English. Mamushka is a celebration of the food and flavours of Ukraine and the "Wild East", with over 100 recipes for fresh, flavourful and unexpected dishes from across the region. After spending a year in Italy, Olia settled in London, pursuing a journalistic career after completing her Master’s degree.

Finally, add the shredded cabbage and beans to the broth and cook for about 7 minutes until cooked through. To test that the poussins are cooked, pull away at the legs – they should come away easily and the juices should run clear. After having her son, and filming for The Food Network, Olia has been writing for Sainsbury's, The Recipe Kit, and the Guardian. I was expecting a really flavorful, spicy hot and pungent soup, and I just didn't quite get there with the flavors.

Ukraine itself is vast, with quite different climates in the north, south east and west – so rationally you would expect different regional cuisines. From the Moldovan giant cheese twist and Ukrainian buns with potatoes and shallots to Garlicky Georgian poussins with spicy plum chutney and Armenian pickled wet garlic; to Napoleon cake, Wasp nest buns and Apricot and sour cherry pie.

Serve the poussins drizzled with the herby juices, or mop the juices up with bread, along with the tkhemali. I really shouldn’t have been surprised, as the Soviet Union was much bigger than Western Europe, and France (or Italy) alone have so many traditional foods specific to tiny regions. This makes a stickier cake layer than the standard Russian medovik biscuit layer which tastes just as good but isn't probably going to present as well as the latter, due to it's stickiness. This book is an ode to all those women (and men) that I was raised by and grew up with, and the food they lovingly prepared.Next time I'd try ground blue fenugreek instead of fenugreek seeds, as I understand it would be quite a different flavor. Mamushka is a celebration of the food and flavours of the "Wild East" - from the Black Sea to Baku and Armenia to Azerbaijan, with over 100 recipes for fresh, flavourful and unexpected dishes from across the region. I bumped up the vinegar and replaced sherry vinegar with champagne, but otherwise stayed true to recipe. A surprisingly huge hit, although I didn’t like the roasted potatoes, which were a little crispy by the time the denser beets were fully cooked.

After having her son, and filming for The Food Network, Olia has been writing for Sainsbury's, The Recipe Kit, and the Guardian . Like many first-time cookery books that make their mark robustly and deservedly, this one came out of left field: a personal collection of recipes from Ukraine, with influences from Russia, Armenia, Georgia and Moldova, Mamushka is a book that isn’t about trends but about telling stories, my favourite sort of cookbook.I keep meaning to try with demerara or turbinado, but they turn out so nicely with regular old granulated, too. And I did start making sorrel soup after going to Poland and having soup there (although a vegetarian based broth with kasha/buckwheat groats used to enrich the soup). Most recipes I tried, I will add to my repertoire, but my favourites were the “Cold Beetroot Soup”, the “Armenian Soup with Lamb and Prune Meatballs”, the “Grilled Vegetable Caviar”, the Georgian Kidney Bean Salad”, “Chilli and Garlic Cucumber”, and the “Azerbaijani Rice and Fruity Lamb”.

She kicked off her culinary career working at London's Union Market before landing her dream job as a chef-departie for Ottolenghi's. I've never made a bread that is has cheese inside (the flatbread has feta cheese incorporated plus herbs) and I loved the result. It was still amazing and well worth the work of chopping, grating and matchsticking all the veggies.I love the superb and delicate combination of herbs, spices and a wonderful range of fresh and local ingredients used in the recipes of this book.