Borscht: the Russian Lent soup (борщ)

never cook borscht myself. I love it, I miss it but somehow I never get around to actually lining up the ingredients and shoving them in the pot. So much the more I appreciate when somebody else makes it for me. It is not the kind of dish you can enjoy in a restaurant. It must be home made. The other day I paid a visit to Olga and that is exactly what she had for lunch for me. Hearty, earthy-flavoured borscht with fresh dill and a dollop of crème-fraîche, served in fancy China with real silverware. She made it the Russian Lent style, that is vegan.

According to Olga it takes just 10 minutes to cook. Here is the recipe:

1. Peel and chop 3 big onions. Fry until golden brown in a generous amount of olive oil.
2. Add 1 big grated carrots and 3 big grated pre-cooked beets. Add more olive oil. Sautée lightly.
   
3. Add black peppercorns and a couple of bay leaves.
4. Add 2 litres boiling water.
   
5. Bring to boil. Turn off heat. Serve with crème-fraîche, fresh dill and/or spring onions.

It tastes great with Russian rye bread. If you can't find it, use German pumpernickel.

Divo: a quest fulfilled

ussian food notoriously does not lend itself to restaurant cooking. Laborious time-consuming recipes involve lots of handwork and are normally reserved for home use. Having lived all my adult years away from Russia, I went on my quest for a real Russian meal from Japan to Bulgaria but it only brought me disappointment each and every time. There is always something terribly off, be it watered down recipes, substituted ingredients, liberally invented dishes, or the horror of it all: the replicated fare of a Soviet workers' canteen. Even in Moscow, which these days may boast fine restaurants representing nearly every corner of the world, Russian food is mostly limited to house parties coming from the loving hands of mothers, wives or sisters.

I was not expecting to fall over myself when I went to Divo, a Russian-Ukrainian restaurant on Waterloo Place, 12. The exuberantly sumptuous interior, reminiscent of fin-de-siècle rich merchant houses in Kiev and Odessa, suggested more a beau-monde hangout rather than a culinary-oriented experience. The fully-stocked giant bar with sleek bartenders and hip house music downstairs only seemed to confirm my fears.

Olga and me tried to put the first impression past us and ordered each different dish to try as many as possible. Olga is a professional business psychologist from an uppity Saint-Petersburg family and is very picky about food so I was very curious about her forthcoming verdict.

For the starters, we had two grande dames of the Russian festive table: "herring in a coat"(£6.50), and "olivier" (£7.50). The former is a salad consisting of layers of finely slivered salted herring, beet roots, boiled potatoes, carrot and boiled eggs spliced with mayonnaise. My Mom also adds peeled apples but Divo's version was none less tasty. The latter, "olivier" is a mix of diced boiled potatoes, carrots, meat, pickles and peas bound in the ubiquitous mayonnaise. To the credit of Divo's chefs, they substituted the horrendous Soviet bologna sausage, which Olga thinks is indispensable to the dish (Shock! Olga how could you?!), with lean chicken breast. Also, to celebrate olivier's noble origins in the Hermitage, one of Moscow's most refined restaurants of the 1860s, they top it with red caviar.

A traditional Russian or Ukrainian meal always features soup but we were glad we did not order any because the volume proved enough to feed your average Slavic bloke. That is a trademark feature of our cuisines: we may be drinking cultures but we do get together to eat before we drink. And the amount of food should match the copious amounts of vodka that will be flowing later.

For the mains, I had bliny stuffed with sautéed button mushrooms (£4.50 - technically, it's a hot starter, hence the price). Doused in creamy and unctuous sauce béchamel, it's a hark-back to the finery of the 19th century's Franco-Russian cuisine. Olga had duck oven-baked with apples (£20.50), or rather the enlightened low-fat version of it, probably a bow to the latter-days health-conscious tendencies. Cooked à point, delicate slices of duck breast are drizzled with cranberry sauce.

When the dessert arrived, Olga threw the towel in so I had to work on both. Varenyky, boiled dumplings with cherries (£15.00), are a Ukrainian speciality. I really liked it that they were served with a much leaner than usual whipped crème fraîche. A nice touch! Our waitress kindly explained what a struggle it was for the chef to source the right kind of cherries, the same as they use for this dish in Ukraine. Olga's choice was something I never expected to see in a restaurant: Russian Napoleon cake (£7.50). It takes at least 24 hours to soak the wafer-thin layers of puff crust in custard cream. Napoleon is considered the ultimate Mamma treat and that is perhaps why Russian pastry chefs never bother to bake it.

It appears Divo also offers quite a fancy European fare but this time we wanted to focus on Russian/Ukrainian favourites.

Pro's: Leaner versions of Eastern Slavic classics. Home-baked bread.

Con's: You won't hear this from me very often but this time I found nothing to pick on.

Summary: The closest approximation to Russian home cooking I could find so far.