Abacá in San Francisco

Eater

At Abacá in San Francisco, chef Francis Ang is known for reimagining Filipino family recipes into fine dining dishes using local California ingredients. Watch how chef Ang breaks down a whole pig's head and preps the meat to make the restaurant's popular lumpia, sisig fried rice, and its innovative take on balut.

Transcript

00:00so here we have our pig's head this one is going to be for our signature dish called sisig fried

00:08rice we're gonna simmer it until it is tender but not overcooked so sisig has been in the

00:16Philippines since the 1700s traditionally sisig is pig's head the more nuanced version started

00:24when there was a US airbase in Pampanga and there was a surplus of pig's head pork in the Philippines

00:31is a very big protein there's a lot of different variations of pork we have our lumpia we have our

00:36sisig so we go through a ton of pork I can't even tell you you'll see in our menu I like to say we

00:42are a modern Filipino restaurant that really pays homage to Filipino recipes and that way we translate

00:48that into our own authentic way in utilizing California ingredients then that way we can

00:53make the cuisine shine through our own lens all right so now the pig's head is cooked we are going

01:02to debone it after that we are going to grill it so deboning it is fairly easy you don't have to worry

01:08about how perfect it looks I just cut through the center and throughout and then just work work my

01:12way through on a size of cheek and then from there I kind of open it up and try to get as much meat as

01:18possible this dish was taught to me my by my dad there's a lot of different places where they do

01:24use shoulder instead of the pig's head but since my dad taught me this dish I really want to get into

01:30making sure that we do it properly we actually will re-brace this and then try to pick out as much as

01:36possible because you don't want to keep wasting right we're trying to mark it and try to get a bunch of

01:42smoke flavor into it and that way when we braise it it permeates through and translates we now have

01:49the braised pig's head this is a reused tire in the Philippines that they turn into a mallet

01:55all right so now we save the pig's brain so we will add that to the cc fried rice add a little bit

02:03of richness some places imitate this richness by using mayonnaise into the cc but since we have a whole

02:10pig's head so we're gonna use back in 2013 we were stranded in a in a typhoon in the Philippines

02:19after we came back in the US we did a fundraiser called rice for hope and that was one of the

02:25dishes that was born then and it's followed me throughout different pop-ups restaurants and I think

02:32it is one of our most important dishes so now we are gonna chop it up

02:39it doesn't need to be perfect so now we are going to sweat the onions put a little bit of the garlic

02:47we're just gonna add this is a chopped up chicken liver this gives a little bit more depth and flavor

02:55kind of like the secret ingredient of a sisig honestly we add the bay leaf so since vinegar is a very

03:02integral part of this we do use a good amount of it this one is distilled vinegar from the Philippines

03:08there's a myth that you're not supposed to stir the vinegar before it boils they say it's gonna come

03:15out very differently the meat's gonna get tough you see it boil I can stir it right I'm not gonna get in

03:20trouble I just added dark soy sauce and then soy sauce call it more if you're familiar with Maggie it'd be

03:27like this competition this calamansi juice Filipino citrus from here mix it with rice this is the base

03:36for the fried rice when it's fired we're gonna toss in a smaller wok then that way you're getting again

03:45a little bit of that walkway flavor so I grew up in the Philippines until basically I was in college I

03:53knew I wanted to cook I never knew I wanted to cook Filipino food and later on we did that fundraiser

03:59and from there we realized that people really appreciated it people loved it and I think that was our calling

04:06now we're gonna make our Lola's lumpia Lola means grandma it's called Lola's lumpia it's because it's

04:14a sort of like a very traditional grandma's recipe we do serve it a little bit more nuanced but let's

04:19make our film first so this one is Berkshire pork this guy is a pork shoulder and we're just gonna cut it

04:24so I believe that by grinding your own pork you can control how emulsified it is I really make sure that

04:32you know the marbling is correct on this and that way flavor really comes out I think lumpia is a

04:38gateway for Filipino food a lot of people have had egg rolls before and they know what it is it's

04:43delicious it's simple and yet it's very Filipino now we have our ground pork we're basically gonna

04:48make sausage we're gonna paddle it our ingredients you got celery carrots garlic onion so start with dry

04:58ingredients first we have a little bit of sugar black pepper salt and then more the liquid seasonings

05:03are like soy sauce this one way to make sure the juices are kept inside of the meat then that way it

05:10doesn't become grainy or dry now we are going to transfer this and we're gonna start filling our lumpia

05:15these are straight from the Philippines handmade lumpia wrappers different from the square ones square

05:22ones are typically machine-made so I prefer these because they're a little bit more delicious a little bit

05:27more crispy than the square ones we are gonna put it in the piping bag by putting in a piping bag it's a

05:34lot more efficient it's a lot easier to manage versus the old-school way of utilizing a spoon and then

05:40doing one by one I used to be a pastry chef and I'm always all about efficiency and making sure that

05:47it's fast easy lumpia is definitely one of the most popular items on the menu similar to the CC fried rice

05:55because whenever there's festivals we sell by the thousands we literally blind every single

06:00countertop with like lumpia wrappers and this one guy just like goes goes around and start filling one

06:07guy egg washes so from here we actually put in the freezer then that way when you fry it the wrapper

06:13doesn't unravel all right we just pop this out from the freezer and then we're gonna drop in a fryer

06:20we are gonna double fry it we just want to make sure it's also cooked through since it's fried from

06:29frozen every Filipino restaurant will have some type of lumpia and I think we we do it ours traditionally but

06:37in a different sense we put it in the lettuce wrap then that way is a little bit more fresh that's that

06:44that's our abaca lumpia I think that's why we make so much of it because we end up snacking out like

06:52a lot of it as well here at abaca we have our secret menu and that's where you're gonna find the

06:58balut balut is a fertilized duck egg imagine a hard-boiled egg with duck inside we're gonna use

07:05this spring-loaded egg top cracker and then we're gonna snap it we can't crack it like a regular egg because

07:12we put the broth back into the shell to kind of be part of our presentation so with the balut we get

07:21it from the farmers market in Daly City it's from Metzer farms they're there every Thursday and Saturday

07:26and Jane is she takes care of us with the perfect size bird sourcing below is easy in the Bay Area

07:33because there's so much population of Filipinos out here in the Bay Area getting this is very very common

07:38right so now we are going to separate the eggs egg yolks and the duckling use your hands so we kind

07:46of on purpose kind of spread it out a little bit then that way when we beer batter it you kind of see

07:51in its entirety this may look shocking but again you know I grew up with this this part of a lot of

07:58different cultures and sharing this is I think it's amazing right first we're gonna go fry these

08:03little ducklings so our clientele you know there's it's a mixed bag right there's a lot of like

08:08Filipinos there's a lot of non Filipinos but a lot of them have never tried balut because there's a

08:13stigma attached to it and our whole approach of that is making it easy for people to to enjoy it all right

08:21so we are now gonna make the batter so all-purpose flour a little bit of rice flour a little bit of

08:27cornstarch onion powder garlic powder by spice turmeric mix it all together and from there we'll

08:36add a little bit of a cold water it's more like a I guess like a sort of like a very close to a

08:40tempura batter so the first fry is gonna be around a minute and a half and then we'll you know make

08:52sure it's cooked through on the second fry now we're gonna set this for a service later on so

08:59once we do get a fire from a table ordering this we're gonna drop it in the fryer again all right

09:04so now we are gonna make our second part of the dish we taken some duck bones that we roasted made

09:11like a 45 stock all right we're just gonna put a little bit in the back and seal bags we're also

09:16going to take that egg whites kind of just like add some protein and some flavor in there this one

09:22after we cook it this will be put back in a shell in broth form so this guy is called a rational combi

09:31it can cook it can steam it can roast it can do both same time it can go high temperatures this is

09:37like one of the hardest working employees in the restaurant and my favorite child don't tell anybody

09:45so now we are going to cook the third part is the egg yolk we're gonna put it in a vacuum seal bag bag

09:54it and then steam it until it's sort of hard well this is the egg yolk so what we're gonna do is cut

10:00it pass it on a tammy so I really push it through and make a mousse out of this we will pass this to

10:05the sieve once or twice depending how smooth it becomes and then we are going to add a little bit

10:10of the cream we'll add a little bit of salt maybe the touch of soy season it the texture I'm looking

10:15for it's a little closer to a deviled egg next we're gonna take our broth and we're gonna put

10:20the broth inside that we've seasoned we're gonna put a little bit of truffle oil on there brings a

10:25little earthiness so the skin we're just gonna put the the duck egg that we passed just smear it like

10:31that we'll garnish a little bit of pickled onions a little bit of sorrel and the Philippine culture we use

10:36a lot of vinegar dipping but instead of like a liquid vinegar we're just gonna go everywhere we

10:41want to dictate how the guest eats it so by making a gel out of it each bite will have that perfect

10:46acidity richness one more thing we're gonna smear a little bit of this kind of have like a standing

10:51point for the little the duck again add a little bit of vinegar so we have it standing up then that

10:56way you know what you're eating it's not hiding it's in plain sight so my favorite way of eating this

11:02would be taking a sip of the broth next the skin nice and crispy and then the duck my biggest thing

11:08is just don't dip the bird into the broth the broth is meant for sipping not as a sauce there you have

11:13it below three ways so I do want to encourage people's curiosity about Filipino food we want to

11:24put Filipino food in front of people and show them that there's different versions of it and making it

11:31approachable a lot of times actually people say I love coming here now I'm gonna visit the Philippines

11:38I think that makes us proud just being able to share the food we grew up it means a lot

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