Olia Hercules

What summer dishes do you enjoy?

One of my favourites recently is like stuffed cabbage leaves, but using beetroot leaves. It’s the bit that usually gets thrown away, but actually it’s really delicious and quite similar to chard. I make it with mushrooms, chestnuts and loads of herbs, and cook it in a really light tomato sauce, then serve with sour cream. I also make sorrel and nettle soup, like a broth. Lots of summer vegetables — whatever you’ve got — and then sorrel for a sour note and nettles for an iron note. It’s really delicious and light.

Where’s the best place to dine in the sun?

Everybody thinks Ukraine is a really cold country, but it’s actually super-hot from April to October, and we normally do a big family picnic. There are pine forests not far from where my mum and dad live; we go by the riverbank, and dad would usually fish. Then, with the fish he catches, we’d have a big cauldron of stock over the fire, and we’d cook a fish broth. With the small fish, you make a stock; the bigger fish, you chop up and add at the end, with dill and garlic. It’s delicious with really good bread.

What’s summer like in Ukraine?

We’ve got this expression: ‘the pavement is melting’ — that’s how hot it gets. Extremely hot, but it also leads to gorgeous produce because we’ve got chernozem — black soil, where everything grows. My mum grows tomatoes that weigh about 700g each, plus aubergines and all of the stone fruits — amazing peaches and apricots. The tomatoes are full of flavour and we slice them into huge steaks, with just a little bit of salt and maybe some unrefined sunflower oil.

Why are outdoor kitchens popular in Ukraine?

Because of this heat. In the summer, in the past, people didn’t have air conditioning. So they’d build small structures, ventilated by opening all the doors and windows. The women would cook there all summer because it’s cooler, and you can keep your main house cleaner. Also, because so much preserving and fermentation happens in September — especially back in the day — that’s a semi-industrial operation. The summer kitchens become almost workshops, where you can have hundreds of jars.