San Francisco Blog

Chuck Siegel of Charles Chocolates has given us a simple but yummy recipe for frozen hot chocolate in less than 140 characters, in keeping with our Twitter challenge to local chefs.

Siegel's free summer movie series continues tonight with a screening of Soul Food, his homemade pecan praline caramel corn, and a soul food truck where dinner items will be available for purchase. The festivities take place at Charles Chocolates' Chocolate Bar (6529 Hollis at 65th in Emeryville). Food and snacks begin at 6:30 p.m., with the film to follow at 9 p.m. Bring a blanket and a chair.

Frozen Hot Chocolate: Melt 8 oz dark chocolate & 1 tbsp sugar in 1.5 cups whole milk (over med. heat). Cool and blend w/3 cups ice.

Melisser (no last name needed, darling) makes supremely tasty vegan confections good enough to fool carnivores through her S.F.-based company Sugar Beat Sweets. She also offers a wide variety of dairy-free insights (from recipes to reviews) via her popular blog the Urban Housewife. She responded to our challenge to distill a recipe down to the size of a Twitter dispatch with a fetching sauce suitable for drizzling over frozen desserts, cookies, cupcakes, fruit crisps, and -- this last one is SFoodie's suggestion -- straight into your mouth.

Easy Hazelnut Caramel Sauce: 1/3 C Hazelnut Butter 1/4 C maple syrup 2 Tb Brown Rice Syrup Pinch of salt. Heat on low in sauce pan, stir til heated & smooth, serve warm!

 

Yes, we bombarded you with bacon last week, and we simply must carry on the tradition now that chef Lisa Eyherabide of Gitane (6 Claude Lane at Bush) has shared this yummy-sounding Twitter-size recipe with us. Named a 2009 Rising Star Chef by the Chronicle, the French expat trained at a Michelin three-star back home. She's known for infusing her native cuisine with Spanish and Moroccan influences.

Bacon Bon Bons: Hole prunes, mx gtchse w/crm, fill prne, slc bcn thin-wrp prune.Sauce: rdc port .5 +dmglc+cin+anisestar,rdce, saut, wrm-oven, srv w/rdction

When you have fresh produce at the peak of its season -- like the delicious yet underrated fava bean -- you don't need to do anything fancy to improve it. Executive chef Mark Richardson of Seasons Restaurant at Four Seasons Hotel San Francisco (757 Market at Grant) has worked for the Four Seasons chain for more than a decade. In response to our challenge to whip up a recipe the size of a teeny Twitter message, Richardson passed along this simple method for fixing favas:

Easy Fava Beans: 1oz fava beans, picked & shell removed, add to medium heat sauté pan and ½ tsp of evoo, sauté until hot, season with s+p

Camera-shy Godby wears his art on his sleeve

At Jake Godby's ice cream emporium Humphry Slocombe (2790 Harrison at 24th St.), vanilla is a bad word. Godby offers it with apparent reluctance, subbing an asterisk for the a like it's a curse word. The pastry chef prefers to challenge customers' palates with everything from prosciutto and strawberry-candied jalapeño to bacon peanut brittle and foie gras ice cream sammies.

In response to our challenge to whip up a recipe in the 140-character space of a tweet, Godby honored us with his previously top-secret formula for the divine frosted peanuts that finish off a Humphry Slocombe Tin Roof sundae:

Frankie Frankeny

Michelle Mah is exec chef at Midi (185 Sutter at Kearny), the Cali-French restaurant in the FiDi's Galleria Park Hotel (read SF Weekly food critic Meredith Brody's recent review here). Mah, as Brody points out, was named a Chron Rising Star Chef three years ago, when she led the kitchen at Ponzu.

Mah met our challenge to distill a recipe down to just 140 characters, the space alotted for a message on Twitter, with a decadent take on fondue. Put that Velveeta away; you oughta be ashamed of yourself.

Goat Cheese Fondue: sm pot: 8oz wwine,shallot,blck pprcrn,bayleaf+1/4c thyme.reduce by 1/2.add cream&reduce by 1/4.strain&add goat chse til crmy&thick. add salt

At barely 7-months-old, Anthony Myint's Mission Street Food is already a San Francisco institution. Myint and crew are setting examples not only with the playful spirit of experimentation (different themes and menus each time), but also with their business model of supporting local charitable organizations by donating their profits each week.

Responding to our challenge to write a recipe within the 140-character space offered on Twitter, Myint crafted a simple, enticing topper:

Charred Scallion Sour Cream: Grill ~15 scallions until very dark. Cool. Mince. Mix w/ 1 qt sour cream, 1 cup aioli, seasoning

Richie Nakano, sous chef at Nopa (560 Divisadero at Fell), is also a talented multimedia producer with a witty 'n gritty blog and podcast, both called line cook. Nakano jumped at our challenge to put together a recipe in the 140-character space carved out by Twitter. Here's his tweet-worthy method for making pancetta.

Nopa Pancetta: 1 organic pork belly. 2% salt by weight. Curing salt. A lot of black pepper. Fennel seed, chili. Cure 10 days. Ferment a few days. Eat.

If you think you recognize the executive chef of Scala's Bistro (432 Powell at Post) wihtout ever having eaten there, it's because Jen Biesty competed on the fourth season of Bravo's Top Chef in 2008, where she cooked meals inspired by penguins and the film Il Postino. SFoodie challenged Biesty to create a recipe the length of a Twitter message; she responded with a squid salad in two tasty tweets:

Pt. 1 (Squid salad): Squid rings & tentacles sauteed over hi heat w/few whole grlc+dried chillis 3-5min. Vinaigrette: 3 grlc clvs, red wine, vinegar, salt, evoo

Pt. 2 (Potatoes): Boil fingerlings w/peppercorns & bay leaf, remove skin, slice. Toss w/ squid, chopped parsley, celery, pitted gaeta olives, piquillo peppers

We've challenged chefs and other food pros to create recipes in the 140-character space carved out by Twitter. SFoodie's first liquid offering comes from Sierra Zimei, cocktail director at Seasons Bar and Lounge in the Four Seasons Hotel (757 Market at Grant). Last year, readers of San Francisco magazine voted Zimei the city's Best Mixologist, and her Sake75 offers up a glimmer of why.

Sake75: 2 oz Magellan gin, ½ oz lemon juice, splash simple syrup; shake, strain into champagne glass, top with blue sake, garnish w/twist