2019 San Francisco Kitchen Notebook
An in-depth look at some of our favorite dishes and cocktails from our time on the ground in the Bay Area.
How To Get To Huancaina Sauce
Chef Dawn Taylor-Cole is the executive chef of the Clift Royal Sonesta Hotel, leading their food and beverage operations, including the Redwood Room, and a team of more than 20. As many execs do, Taylor-Cole is always searching for ways to motivate and bring her staff together. During the 2018 FIFA World Cup, she saw an opportunity to harness the enthusiasm among her international staff for the event. Every gameday, members of her team would volunteer to prepare a family meal to share in the staff cafeteria that represented the competing countries—usually staff members’ home countries, so the dishes were imbued with pride and fanaticism. This is how Taylor-Cole became a fanatic for Peruvian huancaina sauce. When she was developing a fried chicken sandwich for her menu, that brighter-than-banana yellow sauce came to mind. Here’s what Taylor-Cole learned: blend together 16 ounces ají amarillo paste, ¼ cup vegetable oil, and 10 ounces evaporated milk, adding 25 water crackers and 10 ounces queso fresco. Salt and gooaalll!!
Calamansi Koshō
Likha means “to create” in the Filipino dialect of Tagalog. Chefs Jan Dela Paz and Bobby Punla named their Emeryville pop-up Likha because while they’re striving to cook Filipino food that their grandparents would consider “legit,” they’re pulling from all their experiences—including Michelin-star training—to create it. While the Bay Area is known for its plentiful bounty, especially citrus, turns out calamansi, which are essential in Filipino cooking, are not so plentiful. Paz and Punla are sourcing calamansi from the backyards of friends and grandmas, even putting the call out on Instagram to see who may drop off a bag. At markets, they give farmers calamansi seeds to encourage them to cultivate the fruit. To use every last bit of the precious calamansi they take the spent shells after juicing, add a bunch of Fresno chiles, and 4 percent sea salt by weight, and ferment it in 5 quart batches for 2 weeks. The calamansi koshō is blended into a condiment served with classic sisig. But the beautifully floral, tangy, tart, bitter, bright, balanced, spicy sauce could and should be eaten with anything, or just like this editor, with a spoon.
Mexican Punch
In 2014, Raul Ayala started as a barback on the opening team of Dirty Habit. Now, as bar manager, Ayala infuses the cocktail menu with drinks that are potent and rooted in personal nostalgia. He often reaches back to childhood memories of growing up in Tanhuato, Michoacán, Mexico, to create his adult drinks. Such is the case with his cocktail “Deconstructed Mexican Punch.” Traditionally a celebratory punch often enjoyed around Christmas, it’s made like a tea with loads of fresh and dried fruits and spices, sometimes nuts, and usually served hot. Ayala likens the flavor profile to “a negroni with tequila.” At Dirty Habit, he makes his own Mexican Punch reduction and adds Maestro Dobel reposado tequila, Amargo Vallet amaro, and Bittercube Corazon bitters, stirring with ice and straining into a glass containing a large rock. Ayala garnishes the complex, festive, and, for him, comforting cocktail with a slice of dried guava or Pink Lady apple.
