Alissa Timoshkina's spiced blackberry rye crumble with caraway custard (Photo: Kim Lightbody)[Missing Credit]
“I was already sort of nurturing this book before the release of the previous one, and I almost imagined it like a follow-up,” Timoshkina tells me when we meet the day after Yom Kippur, and both of us feeling slightly worse for wear for it.
“Kapusta had such a specific framework based as it is around five vegetables (cabbage, beetroot, potato, carrot and mushrooms) so it is perhaps not surprising that while I was working on it I found amazing recipes that just didn’t fit that very specific theme. So I saved them for the future.”
Initially, Timoshkina imagined that this book would be all about soups, which she describes as “kind of the soul of Eastern European cooking”, perfectly encapsulating the “philosophy of cooking and eating that is seasonal, very low waste, very accessible ingredients and of low cost”. But eventually the idea broadened to centre around the spoon which she describes as “a beautiful symbol on so many levels”.
Lozhka contains over 80 recipes, and is split into four chapters: soups and broths; stews and grains; dumplings and pasta; sweet comfort. Not being overly familiar with Eastern European cuisine – aside from the Ashkenazi classics – I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect, and was amazed at how many recipes I wanted to make. And top of my to-try list was Azu (a Volga Tatar beef and dill pickle stew, which intriguingly, includes fried potato chips) and Moczka (Timoshkina’s take on a gingerbread and chocolate pudding from Upper Silesia).
Alissa Timoshkina's Eastern European baked beans (Photo: Kim Lightbody)[Missing Credit]
And with the notable exception of the dumplings, I wasn’t nervous that I might find the recipes difficult to follow. When I shared this with Timoshkina she was pleased, adding that achieving this level of pared-back authenticity has been a journey.
“With my previous cookbooks, I didn’t maybe feel confident enough to be so straightforward but the more I cook this way, the more I talk to people who grew up with this kind of food, the more self-assured I feel about putting it out there without any hipster packaging, as it were.”
One theme that shines through the pages of Lozhka is how seasonal Eastern European food is. Or, as Timoshkina puts it in the introduction, cooking from this part of the world has “a mystical, deeply spiritual reverence for nature, its seasons and its produce”.
Although the book naturally leans towards the kind of cosy dishes you want to eat in autumn and winter, it also features recipes for every season. One of the ways Timoshkina does this is by including sweet and savoury cold soups which are “a real staple” in Eastern Europe. Like many Brits, my cold soup experience has so far been limited to the odd gazpacho, and even rarer vichyssoise, so I am keen for Timoshkina’s lead on where a cold soup novice might begin.
“The entry point, I would say, is the Bulgarian tarator, a relative of Greek tzatziki. It’s essentially yoghurt, cucumber, garlic, lemon with walnuts, and has the most amazing bite and texture,” she says. And on the other end of the spectrum, for “real connoisseurs”, as she puts it, is a Hungarian recipe for fermented cucumber and sour cream soup.
Alissa Timoshkina's Crimean Jewish borsch, from her cookbook Lozhka (Photo: Kim Lightbody)[Missing Credit]
While the book is not kosher, it is joyfully Jewish including as it does recipes such as Crimean Jewish borscht with quince (which Timoshkina created “based on the beautiful stories” of her great-grandmother Rosalia’s childhood in Ukraine) and gefilte kreplach, her ode to the most Marmite of Ashkenazi foods that is gefilte fish.
One of the highlights is the section on cholent, which Tomishkina tells me is “more of a ritual really than a dish”. Alongside her recipe for what she describes as a classic cholent, and which, with its array of spices, pomegranate molasses and eggs, will now be my go-to, there is an extraordinary recipe for a Hungarian version with smoked duck which came via the mother of one of Timoshkina’s friends who, in turn, adapted it from an old Jewish cookbook.
Timoshkina with her great-grandmother, Rosalia[Missing Credit]
And there are also some wonderful nods to Timoshkina’s life in Britain, where she has now lived for almost 30 years and where she is raising her two children. They include her Eastern European take on baked beans, and a spiced blackberry rye crumble with caraway custard, which she describes as “a classic British dish with an Eastern European accent”.
With three books published in such quick succession, I’m keen to know if a fourth might be in the pipeline and whether she would ever write one dedicated entirely to Ashkenazi recipes.
Yes and no. “I am not actively working on it yet but I really want to write a culinary biography of my great-grandmother who has such a huge culinary influence on me,” she says. “This aspect of my family history has been a lifelong fascination and, yes, I would like to pay tribute to it via a book.”
Lozhka by Alissa Timoshkina is published by Quadrille
