Describing themselves as the sexiest new restaurant in Portland, owners Paul and Adrienne Van Slyke of the Siam Society are taking Thai cuisine to a whole new level.  When you are ready to take your own Thai adventure beyond Sesame Noodles and Pad Thai this is definitely the place for you.  Start off your evening with one of their award winning drinks, "Thai Me Up" iced tea with a generous pour of Stoli Vanilla vodka or maybe a "Jalapeno-Pear Kamikaze" more vodka, infused with fresh Pears and Jalapenos. The appetizers and entrees are some of the most creative culinary creations ever seen and you might think about ending your meal with the "Cardamom" Ice Cream or a "Silk Cocoon", banana, sweet rice, and toasted hazelnuts wrapped in flaky pastry and served with home made Coconut Ice Cream.  Today, they graciously share with us one of their best selling entreés,  Lamb Shanks in Yellow Curry.  

Lamb Shanks in Yellow Curry

For Lamb Shanks

• 4 lamb shanks (12oz to 16oz)
• 1/2 cup canola oil
• 2 cups white wine
• 1 cup onion
• 1/4 cup carrots
• 2 cloves garlic
• 2 Tbsp Mustard Seeds
• 1 Tbsp Coriander Seeds
• 2 Tbsp Madras Curry powder
• 1 1/2 Tbsp salt
• 1/2 Tbsp white peppercorns
• 1/2 Tbsp black peppercorns
• 2 Tbsp sugar
• Water to cover 

Preheat oven to 275.  Sear lamb shanks in canola oil, turning on all sides until a deep, golden brown.  Remove lamb from sauté pan and place in baking pan.  To sauté pan, add white wine and bring to boil; simmer and reduce wine by about 1/3; add onion, carrots and garlic and cook until softened.  Add mustard seeds, coriander seeds, Madras curry powder, salt, white and black peppercorns and sugar.  Pour liquid, vegetables and spices over lamb shanks in baking pan, and add enough water to halfway cover shanks.  Cover tightly and place in oven.  Cook, covered for 2 1/2-3 hours, rotating once, until meat is falling off bone.

For Yellow Curry

• 5 Tbsp plus 1 tsp yellow curry paste
• 1 tsp canola oil
• 1 Tbsp Vinegar
• 1 Tbsp plus 2 tsp Thai Fish Sauce
• 3 Tbsp plus 2 tsp Sugar
• 1 tsp Madras curry powder
• 1 tsp Freshly ground cumin
• 1 tsp Freshly ground coriander
• 1 tsp Dried chili flakes
• 5 cups Coconut Milk

Heat curry paste over medium heat in canola oil; add vinegar, fish sauce, sugar, curry powder, cumin, coriander, and chili flakes.  Stir until aromatic; add coconut milk and bring to boil.  Taste for balance and adjust sugar and salt, if needed.

About Siam Society

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For all the ice cold beers and perfect glasses of red wine I have had, very few things are more satisfying than a perfectly mixed cocktail.  The cocktail culture is undergoing a complete rebirth and along with knowing your reds from your whites you also need to know how to serve Scotch neat and make a mean Martini.  James Beard award winning columnist for the Wall Street Journal and jazz musician Eric Felten has done a fabulous job of introducing a little of that cassic cocktail culture to us in his book "Hows Your Drink? Cocktails, Culture, and the Art of Drinking Well".  In this book Mr. Felten re-introduces us to the most well known and classic cocktails, from the Mint Julep to the Manhattan, he explains to us how they came to be, how to make them, and the roles they played in classic literature and film.  In the excerpt below you will find the original recipe for the long forgotten "Clover Club" cocktail and author F. Scott Fitzgerald's role in the introduction of the illustrious "cocktail sets" complete with a Russel Wright cocktail shaker (for all you vintage barware collectors).  Although this book may not appeal to those looking for something more basic in way of classic cocktail preparation, if you love cocktails, literature, film, and a little jazz, in that order, then this is definitely a must have for you. 

The following is excerpted from "How's Your Drink?" by Eric Felton, Agate Surrey 2007

The same year that Babbitt hit the shelves, F. Scott Fitzgerald published The Beautiful and Damned, whose protagonist, the upper-crusty Anthony Patch, doesn’t mind quite as much as Babbitt about being known as a Drinker. When Patch gets married, a friend gives the happy couple “an elaborate ‘drinking set,’ which included silver goblets, cocktail shaker, and bottle-openers.” Fitzgerald allowed that this was a slightly less conventional “extortion” than the silver Tiffany tea set the Patches also received.

By the 1930s, cocktail sets had become among the most conventional of wedding presents. No doubt many were put to good use, but plenty went the way of other wedding presents: up on the shelf to be used for extra-special entertaining—which is to say, never. That’s one reason why it is easy to find great shakers and cocktail glasses from the mid-20th century. On any given day, eBay has hundreds of vintage cocktail shakers on offer. There are utilitarian shakers in stainless steel, arch chrome-plated art-deco icons, glass shakers in cobalt or ruby, elegant sterling silver sets, and very occasionally something from Russel Wright.

In Mary McCarthy’s novel, The Group, newlywed “Kay’s first wedding present, which she had picked out herself, was a Russel Wright cocktail shaker.” Made out of spun aluminum, the shaker came with “a tray and twelve little round cups to match—light as a feather and nontarnishable, of course.” When Kay throws a cocktail party, she serves up Clover Club cocktails in those little round aluminum cups.

The novel is autobiographical, and McCarthy had her own Russel Wright cocktail set. Leftist politics in New York in the ’30s flowed along a river of cocktails, and McCarthy later wrote that “the literary rackets—The Hollywood racket, the New York cocktail-party racket, and the Stalinist racket” were “practically indistinguishable.”  It seems that all the most fashionable fellow travelers were pouring from Russel Wright cocktail shakers.

I can see why the Wright stuff would appeal to the striving literary bohemian set. The lines and shapes reflected the machine-age craze for industrial design. More important to the socially conscious was that it was made of simple honest materials: spun aluminum, cork, and walnut. Most Deco bar sets are dressed up in chromium—a little too flashy for serious-minded contributors to Partisan Review.

Wright designed more than one cocktail shaker. His 1932 version looked like a howitzer shell and has been exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. And then there is Wright’s “Cocktail Hour Set,” the one with the little round cups that McCarthy remembered. The shaker is a marvel of counter-programming. When every other designer was making tall slender shakers called “skyscrapers,” Wright fashioned a gourd-shaped mixer, a slightly smushed sphere topped with a thick pipe of a neck for holding and pouring. The neck is wrapped in cork for a good grip and to keep one’s hand from freezing. When McCarthy bought her set in the thirties, she would have paid about seven dollars. Today, a Russel Wright shaker and tray with a dozen cups can run toward $10,000. 

Clover Club

• 1 1/2 oz gin
• 1 oz fresh lemon juice
• 1/2 oz grenadine
• 1/2 teaspoon sugar
• 1 egg white (fresh or pasteurized)

Shake vigorously with ice—drinks with egg white need extra elbow grease—and strain into little round aluminum Russel Wright cocktail cups, if you can afford them.

About How's Your Drink?

Based on the popular feature in the Saturday Wall Street Journal, How’s Your Drink is an essential addition to the literature of spirits and a fantastic holiday gift for husbands and fathers. It illuminates the culture of the cocktail. Cocktails are back after decades of decline, but the literature and lore of the classics has been missing. John F. Kennedy played nuclear brinksmanship with a gin and tonic in his hand. Teddy Roosevelt took the witness stand to testify that six mint juleps over the course of his presidency did not make him a drunk. Ernest Hemingway and Raymond Chandler both did their part to promote the gimlet. Fighting men mixed drinks with whatever liquor could be scavenged between barrages, raising glasses to celebrate victory and to ease the pain of defeat. Eric Felten tells all of these stories and many more, and also offers exhaustively researched cocktail recipes.

Available at Amazon.com 

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Although I’m not Jewish, my husband was raised Jewish and I’ve enjoyed my fair share of Jewish foods over the years.  I’ve also heard stories of all the wonderful food he enjoyed in New York City and Long Island as he grew up.  Reading Arthur Schwartz’s Jewish Home Cooking evoked warm memories of these foods and stories.  Schwartz's stories and reflections are interesting and informative.  His recipes are even more compelling, ranging from classic street fare such as the Potato Knish (description and recipe below), the diner special of Boiled Flanken, to several variants of the ever enduring Kugel.  If you are familiar with Jewish food,  Schwartz’s cookbook will bring you home and if you’re unfamiliar with Jewish food this book is the perfect introduction. 

Potato Knishes

From Arthur Schwartz’s Jewish Home Cooking by Arthur Schwartz, Ten Speed Press, 2008.

Knishes as we know them today were probably created in New York, modeled after an unknown European prototype. According to Eve Jochnowitz, a culinary ethnographer, in a piece by Erica Marcus in Long Island’s Newsday, “The knish probably had its origins in Western Europe and...it accompanied the Jews eastward when, in the fourteenth century, they were expelled from France.” This dating, says Jochnowitz, explains why early European references to knishes have them stuffed with meat or cabbage: the potato didn’t make its way from the New World to Europe until after Columbus’ journey in the late fifteenth century.

Maybe Jochnowitz is right. I don’t think so. She certainly is correct that “those Eureka moments—like that shish kebab was invented by William the Conqueror’s wife—are almost never true.” Still, the Yonah Schimmel Knish Bakery on Houston Street, one of the few Lower East Side businesses still left from immigrant days, claims to have created them. And there are other stories as well.

Whatever their origin, they apparently did not exist as they are today in anyone’s Old Country. The word itself is related to the Italian word gnocchi, the Austrian word knoedel, and the Yiddish word knaidlach, all of which are kinds of dumplings. My sketchy etymological research on this produced the word lump as the meaning of the gn and kn root.

The New York knish is a kind of dumpling, too, a baked dumpling, like people call apples baked in pastry “apple dumplings.” It is stuffed pastry. The traditional New York fillings are potato and kasha (buckwheat groats), although the old-timers of my youth also liked dusty, dry liver-filled knishes. These are nearly impossible to find today. That palate and that taste are gone. Today we have fillings like spinach and broccoli, which are blended with the potato. I’m told by Les Green, the owner of Mrs. Stahl’s Knishes, that the popularity of broccoli is about to exceed pure potato. Sweetened cheese knishes have been around for decades—Yonah Schimmel started baking them. But, as Erica Marcus notes, at least there are no sun-dried tomato knishes—yet.

In the classic delicatessen knish, the pastry encloses only the bottom and sides of the filling, leaving the top of the filling exposed. But there are various styles, including a strudel style in which the filling is made into a pastry-wrapped roll that is sliced. The first knishes were baked, as most delicatessen knishes are today.

To form classic, open-topped knishes, make the rolls as instructed below and cut into 2-inch pieces. Take the piece of dough that is overlapping on the side and twist it so it now covers one of the open ends of the slice. Dab the end with a bit of egg wash and bring it back up to meet the side of dough. Push the knish into shape and bake as directed below.

Potato Knishes

Makes about 4 dozen

Potato Filling

• 5 pounds russet (baking) potatoes
• 1 tablespoon salt, or more to taste
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 6 cups coarsely chopped onions (about 6 medium onions), fried in peanut, corn, or canola oil or Schmaltz or a combination until medium brown

Dough

• 1/2 cup hot water
• 1/2 cup canola, peanut, or corn oil
• 2 large eggs
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
• 3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• Egg Wash
• 1 egg, beaten well

To make the filling, peel the potatoes, cut them into chunks, and place them in a large pot. Cover with cold water by about an inch and bring the water to a boil over high heat. Boil the potatoes until very tender, about 15 to 20 minutes, depending on the size of the chunks. Drain immediately in a colander.

Using a food mill with the medium blade or a potato ricer (do not use a food processor), work the potatoes into a smooth puree. Stir in 1 tablespoon of the salt and the pepper. Stir the onions into the mashed potatoes. Taste and adjust the seasoning (I like mine peppery), then cover tightly and refrigerate until chilled.

To make the dough, in the bowl of a food processor fitted with the metal blade, combine the water, oil, eggs, salt, and pepper. Process briefly to mix well. Add 3 cups of the flour and the baking powder. Process again until the dough is smooth.

Flour a work surface with some of the remaining 1/2 cup flour and scrape the dough out onto this surface. Knead the dough briefly, just a minute or so, to incorporate just enough additional flour to make a dough that is just slightly sticky. Wrap the dough in wax paper or plastic wrap and let it rest for 1 hour in the refrigerator before rolling it out.

To make knish logs, cut the dough into 4 pieces. Roll out one piece at a time to an 18 by 8 inch rectangle. The long side of the dough should be facing you. With your hand, take enough cold potato filling to make a long, approximately 2-inch-wide roll of potato along the long side of the dough, about 2 inches up from the bottom edge. Bring the bottom edge of the dough over the potato roll and brush the upper edge with egg. Bring the upper edge of the dough over the egg-washed edge. Repeat with the remaining dough and filling.

Lightly grease 2 baking sheets. Transfer 2 rolls to each baking sheet, seams down. Brush the logs with beaten egg.

Preheat the oven to 375˚F. Bake the rolls until golden, about 50 minutes.

To serve, cut the rolls into crosswise pieces about 1 to 1 1/2 inches wide. 

About Arthur Schwartz’s Jewish Home Cooking

Arthur Schwartz knows how Jewish food warms the heart and delights the soul, whether it's talking about it, shopping for it, cooking it, or, above all, eating it. JEWISH HOME COOKING presents authentic yet contemporary versions of traditional Ashkenazi foods--rugulach, matzoh brei, challah, brisket, and even challenging classics like kreplach (dumplings) and gefilte fish--that are approachable to make and revelatory to eat. Chapters on appetizers, soups, dairy (meatless) and meat entrees, Passover meals, breads, and desserts are filled with lore about individual dishes and the people who nurtured them in America. Light-filled food and location photographs of delis, butcher shops, and specialty grocery stores paint a vibrant picture of America's touchstone Jewish food culture.

Available at Amazon.com

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Photo by France Ruffenach

Simply Organic begins with an introduction to organic foods and your organic pantry.  It is then divided into eight different times of year with recipes for the ingredients available during those times.  The sections are first of spring, late spring, early summer, midsummer, Indian summer, autumn harvest, early winter and deep winter.  Each of these ‘seasons’ has an introduction talking about what Jesse cooks during that season followed by a collection of recipes for that season.  The recipes have short introductions followed by detailed descriptions on how to prepare them.  The book is colorful and has photos for some of the dishes.

I dug right into this cookbook when I got it since it is inviting and you can almost feel Jesse’s strong devotion to organic, seasonally available ingredients as you read it.  Of course, it helps that I’ve met Jesse and heard her talk, as I read it could hear her voice in the words.

Asparagus is in season now so I asked what does Simply Organic offer?  The answer is a great recipe for Asparagus and Scallops, see below.  It is simple and delicious.  I have green onions in my garden right now (actually small Walla Walla onions that need to be thinned and can be used as green onions) and I found a great recipe for Ricotta Gnocchi with Green Onions in Simply Organic.  I’d never made ricotta gnocchi before and this was a fun one to try. The recipe was really easy and the result was wonderful.  Even Husband who doesn’t usually like Gnocchi really enjoyed Jesse’s version.  I’ll definitely be making these gnocchi again and again.  I also loved the details Jesse provided such as how to determine if I’d added enough flour and not merely stating how long to cook the gnocchi but telling me how to know when they were done. 

With the eight different sections each containing 15-20 recipes I think I’ll be turning to Simply Organic rather frequently – especially when my garden is in full production mode!

Asparagus and Scallops

From Simply Organic by Jesse Ziff Cool, Chronicle Books 2008

This is a perfect dish for springtime, served with fresh rolls and a crisp white wine.

• 3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
• 3 tablespoons fresh lime juice
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 whole canned chipotle chile pepper, pureed or minced
• 3 tablespoons finely chopped fresh cilantro
• 1 pound sea scallops
• ¾ cup yellow cornmeal
• 1 teaspoon ground coriander
• ½ teaspoon salt
• ¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 1 pound asparagus, trimmed
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
• Lime wedges for garnish

In a small bowl, combine the oil, lime juice, sugar, garlic, chile pepper, and cilantro.  Let sit for at least 30 minutes.

Remove and discard the tough muscle from the scallops.

In a small bowl, combine the cornmeal, coriander, salt and black pepper. Toss the scallops in the cornmeal mixture and set aside.

Pour ½ cup water into a heavy skillet. Bring to a boil over high heat. Add the asparagus.  Reduce the heat to medium-low, cover, and simmer for 4 minutes, or until tender-crisp.  Remove to a platter and keep warm.

Wipe the skillet and add the butter. Place over medium heat to melt the butter. Add the scallops and cook for 2 to 4 minutes, turning once, until lightly browned and opaque.

Divide the asparagus evenly among 4 plates. Top with the scallops. Drizzle with the chipotle dressing, and garnish with lime wedges.

Kitchen Tip

Often scallops are soaked in sodium tripolyphosphate (STP) to help keep them moist.  To avoid chemical-laden scallops, look for scallops labeled Day Boat, Diver, Dry Pack or Chemical-Free.  These scallops are more readily available these days and, of course, area much healthier choice.  They may not be perfectly white and uniform in size but those qualities are not natural to scallops; they are human-induced.  As always, opt for the most natural products available.  And, as always, ask questions.  The fishmonger should know exactly where the fish is from and how it has been treated.

About Simply Organic

The world is changing, and along with it, so must our eating habits. Author and restaurateur Jesse Ziff Cool has compiled over 30 years of knowledge about organic, local, and sustainable food into one magnificent cookbook. With 150 enticing recipes, Simply Organic encourages home cooks to embrace organics as a lifestyle rather than a fad. Cool organizes her chapters seasonally to ensure that the freshest, ripest ingredients enhance the flavors of dishes like Filet Mignon with mashed Potatoes and Leek Sauce in early spring to Pumpkin Raisin Bread Pudding in autumn. Inspiring profiles on farmers and producers reveal how these individuals are working to create a sustainable future every day.

Available at Amazon.com

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There is nothing like stumbling into your favorite watering hole after a long day at work for that much needed cocktail or cold beer, the place were everyone knows "your name".  And wouldn't it be great if that watering hole had a top notch menu to go along with all those great drinks?  More and more local bars are offering customers something besides the hottest cocktail or whatever is on tap, they are capitalizing on those end of day hunger pangs and trying their best to keep you from having to go home and put dinner on the table. "Drink Kitchen" is what they're calling it and no one seems to be doing it better than Chef Roland Robles and Owner John Jasso with Bar Johnny over in San Francisco's Russian Hill.

Signature seasonal cocktails and classic drinks (sidecar or mint julep) are offered up with such goodies like garlic truffle fries and the dish they are sharing with us today, Lamb Braise on Toast.  

Lamb Braise on Toast 

• 1 Whole, Bone-in Lamb’s leg
• 2 Yellow Onion, diced largely
• 2 Lg Carrots, diced largely
• 4 Fennel bulbs, diced largely
• 1 stalk Celery, diced largely
• 1 Cup Star Anise
• ½ cup fennel seed 
• 750ml Red Wine
• 2 Qt Lamb Stock

Remove most of the fat from the leg and slowly render it.

Use this to sear the leg after it’s been salted & peppered.  Once it’s nicely browned, remove it from the pan and pour off most of the grease. Place the diced vegetables in the pan with a little salt and sauté for a couple of minutes, then add the whole spices and continue sautéing them until the vegetables become translucent.  Pour in the wine and reduce it by half, then add the stock and bring it to a boil.  Return the leg and cover the pan tightly.  Braise slowly at 300°F for 6 hrs or more until it’s really tender.  Strain the liquid and reduce it to a sauce to use with portioned braised lamb over toast.

About Bar Johnny

Located in Russian Hill, Bar Johnny mixes American comfort food with a seasonal cocktail and boutique wine selection. Signature cocktails include the Sugarplum Bellini, with pureed Santa Rosa plum, and the Bourbon & Maple, made with Woodford Reserve Angostura bitters. Bar Johnny serves “bar bites,” main courses, dessert, as well as brunch on the weekends.

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