COOK UKRAINIAN

Explore the vibrant cuisine of eastern Europe in your own kitchen with these recipes from food writer Olia Hercules

Olia Hercules shares her recipes, from braised cabbage to poppy seed cake

Pot-roast chicken cooked in herby crème fraîche

Chicken smothered and baked in cultured cream is an old classic, but sometimes I like to go one step further. I use a lot of herbs at home and sometimes I am left with quite a few stalks, such as dill, parsley, basil and coriander. These can all be stirred into crème fraîche, and by the time the chicken is cooked, it turns into the most amazing sauce. Serve it with chunks of bread and boiled cabbage, new potatoes or a buttery rice pilau with lemon. Any leftovers are delicious stirred through cooked short pasta.

SERVES 6 PREP 10 mins plus a couple of hours optional marinating COOK 1 hr EASY

150ml crème fraîche

25g dill or parsley (or use leftover

stalks), roughly chopped 4 garlic cloves, roughly chopped 1 tbsp rapeseed oil

1.4kg whole chicken

1 Tip the crème fraîche, herbs, garlic and a generous pinch of salt into a food processor and blitz until smooth. Taste and add more salt or some pepper, if needed.

2 Drizzle the oil into a roasting tin, place the chicken in the tin and spread the herby crème fraîche all over it, inside and out. If you have time, cover and leave to marinate at room temperature for a couple of hours, or in the fridge overnight.

3 Heat the oven to 200C/180C fan/ gas 6. Cover the chicken loosely with foil and roast for 45 mins, basting it a couple of times. Remove the foil and roast for 15-20 mins more, or until the legs come away from the body of the chicken easily and the juices run clear when the thickest part of the thigh is pierced with the tip of a knife. If the juices don’t run clear, return to the oven and roast for another 15 mins before testing again.

4 Leave the chicken to rest for 5-10 mins. Pull the tender meat from the bones with two forks and mix through the roasting juices, then serve.

GOOD TO KNOW gluten free

PER SERVING 357 kcals • fat 26g • saturates 11g •

carbs 1g • sugars 1g • fibre none • protein 30g •

salt 0.2g

Chef and food writer Olia Hercules was born in the south of Ukraine, where she lived until she was 12. She’s the author of three books, Mamushka, Kaukasis and Summer Kitchens, and is a regular guest chef on BBC One’s Saturday Kitchen. @oliahercules