Scottish Field is presenting a series of Feel Good Food recipes over the next few days.
We’re sharing these recipes, which have been created by Olia Hercules for Maldon Salt, as part of the Feel Good Food series running on the Maldon Salt socials.
Today, we present a recipe for a Fennel, Blood Orange and Shallot Relish.
The fennel adds crunch, the orange lends sweetness and acidity, and the shallot gives this relish a mignonette kind of feel. It keeps well in the fridge and is good with so many things including mackerel and pork belly and it would also work well in a sandwich. It is equally good with roast vegetables such as pumpkin, especially if it’s been charred on some coals.
Olia Hercules was born in the south of Ukraine in 1984. She left her home town Kakhovka at the age of twelve, when she moved to Cyprus.
After finishing school, she moved to the UK where she studied Italian language and International Relations at the University of Warwick. After spending a year in Italy, Olia settled in London, pursuing a journalistic career after completing her Master’s degree.
Following the financial crisis of 2008, Olia decided to quit her job as a film business reporter to pursue her dream to cook for a living.
She trained at the renowned Leiths School of Food and Wine and then worked as a chef de partie in restaurants, including Ottolenghi, and as a recipe developer before landing a book deal for Mamushka, a cookbook that celebrates her family recipes, from Ukraine and Moldova to Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan.
Mamushka has won the prestigious Fortnum and Mason Award for best debut cookbook 2016. It has been translated into five languages, and to date has sold more than 100,000 copies worldwide. Olia was named the Observer Rising Star of 2015.
Her second cookbook is called Kaukasis: a culinary journey through Georgia, Azerbaijan and beyond.
Her third cookbook, Summer Kitchen, with Bloomsbury was published in spring 2020.
Olia lives in London with her son Sasha and husband Joe, writing, cooking and feeding her unceasing curiosity by researching food culture and culinary traditions of countries less explored.
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