Last Updated on March 1, 2026
Recipes to comfort and connect
A new cookbook from award-winning Olia Hercules is always hotly anticipated. A renowned chef and writer, her previous cookbooks, Kaukasis, Mamushka and Summer Kitchens, brought Ukrainian and Eastern European cooking into many of our kitchens. Home Food (Bloomsbury) was written during lockdown and the subtitle ‘recipes to comfort and connect’ was apt then and continues to be the purpose of home cooking. Hercules cannot have had much time in the past months for home cooking and has been much in the news since the war in Ukraine began as an activist, organiser, fundraiser, speaker and constant presence in the media to encourage us to not forget the tragedy unfolding.
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.
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.
In Home Food Hercules writes about migration and the central role that food plays in keeping us connected to the places that have shaped us. Hercules always writes from the heart and shares stories with her readers that are very personal such as her relationship history, her children and her family – she is married to Joe Woodhouse, a photographer and cookbook writer (Your Daily Veg) who took the photographs for Home Food. The first section is full of recipes that Hercules cooks at home for her young family and there are lots of ideas which will certainly pep up my daily cooking. Squid stew, cauliflower soup with cashew dukkah, Bengali roast chicken are all waiting their turn to be tried out in my kitchen. The second chapter, entitled Migrations, charts the history of her family in Ukraine and raises the question of authenticity and whether anyone can ever own food and recipes. Here I found a recipe for radish and pomegranate salad which took me back to my own East European roots although I doubt my grandmother ever encountered a pomegranate. I do like this about Hercules recipes, that one finds unusual and delicious combinations.
From Eastern Europe, the book crosses over to Italy, which is a change of tempo and tastes. During her year abroad as a student, Hercules was struck by the ease with which her Italian friends cooked simple pasta dishes and inspired by their example, she resolved to learn to cook. Here we have a few simply fabulous pasta recipes, such as sea urchin pasta, which is a must-make when next on holiday in climes where sea urchins are sold in markets. The next section, Potatoes and Cabbages, is so-called because Hercules constantly confronted an ignorance-based prejudice against Ukrainian cooking. She has done more than any other cookbook writer I have come across to educate her readers about the wealth of dishes that constitute the cooking from her home country. She does not shy away from the humble vegetables and gives us a few creative pointers for using potatoes and cabbage, such as Nina’s cabbage pie and potatoes from my childhood – what a wonderful name for a recipe. There follows a section on celebratory foods – including mouth-wateringly fabulous cakes – and another chapter entitled ” Food and Love, ” which is about self-care and time spent in the kitchen. This might sound contradictory for some, but for those who find cooking therapeutic, download the videos from the QR codes at the back of the book and spend some time making dumplings and noodles. The final chapter, Lime Tree Honey in the Air, is full of sweetness and happy memories of lime tree blossom. I tried one recipe from his section, which was a dish of baked apples. I grew up frequently eating this dish, but never with Hercules’ delicious ricotta filling. I eagerly await the occasion on which to make Hedvig’s brown butter, miso and walnut cake. Oh my.
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, which was delicious.
I am relatively newly converted to eating radish; for some reason, this cheerful vegetable has never featured much in my kitchen unless a recipe called for it. Hercules gives the humble radish a starring role in this salad, which is also a light pickle. I forgot about the leftovers which lurked in the fridge for a few days, and when I finally discovered and ate them, I was rewarded with a lovely pickle which had turned bright pink from the pomegranate juice. It is such a refreshing salad and perfect for the summer table.
Another salad, which also made for great leftovers – the dressing is seriously good – is made with green beans, apple, fennel and nuts. This has a lovely contrast of textures and keeps well in the fridge to eat the next day, when I enjoyed it with a dollop of cottage cheese and a thick slice of fresh sourdough.
The one recipe that really transported me back to my own childhood was a very simple dish of green beans in tomato sauce. We ate this very dish when I was growing up – the sauce was both sweet and slightly tart, the green beans cooked rather than steamed as I would prepare them nowadays. Eating a bowl of these beans – which I served as a side with roast chicken and roast potatoes – conjured up so many happy images and memories. I was delighted to be reacquainted with it.
Home Food is full of exciting ideas for the home cook – some simple and others perfect for entertaining or just spoiling the family. It is also full of beautiful prose, personal stories and Hercules’ special gift of connecting through her writing.
Radish and pomegranate salad
Ingredients
- 1 pomegranate seeds removed
- 300 grams radish
- 2 tbsp pomegranate molasses
- 1 tbsp white wine vinegar or lemon juice
- 1 small mild white onion finely sliced
- 1 handful soft herbs - dill, coriander, mint or Thai basil
- 1 pinch sumac optional
- sea salt
Instructions
- 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.
- Cut the radishes in whichever way your prefer. The thinner the pieces the quicker they will pickle.
- Add the pomegranate molasses and vinegar (or lemon juice) to the bowl of pomegranate juice and season well with sea salt.
- Put the radishes and onion slices in the bowl and mix with the dressing. Leave to macerate for 15 minutes. Add the herbs, scatter with the reserved pomegranate seeds and sprinkle with sumac if using.
Nutrition
Order Home Food online from Bloomsbury Publishers here or buy from any good bookshop
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