SUN MAGAZINE’S HOLIDAY 2012 GUIDE
A Voltaggio Christmas
Innovative chef intent on preserving family traditions
BY JILL ROSEN
For Bryan Voltaggio, this holiday season is about beginnings.
His latest restaurant venture — and the first outside Frederick—
is slated to open. It will be his family’s first Christmas in their new
Urbana home. And with a son age 5 and a daughter who’s not quite 2, that
tender age when he’s pretty sure Christmas memories start to truly cement,
the chef and father is determined to do it right.
No surprise, he’ll be making most of it happen in the kitchen —
Santa’s workshop with cinnamon, nutmeg, orange peel and peppermint.
“Roasted meats and braises, caramelized vegetables, root vegetable
puree, the aromas of fall going into winter,” he says. “I find the
holidays such a comforting season.”
Voltaggio is a man who embraces not only family but ritual and gesture. The
annual ornaments he and his wife add to the tree for each child. They way
he and his cousins draw names for a homemade gift exchange. How Christmas
Eve always ends with Jennifer and him planting presents under the tree, and
the following morning always begins with the couple tiptoeing downstairs before
their son wakes so they can be there — cameras poised — capturing
his surprise.
“My mother still sends me new Christmas pajamas every year, and I’m
36 years old,” he says, laughing.
Taking a cue from the movie “A Christmas Story,” Voltaggio tries
to hide one extra gift for his son behind the tree. Like the holiday classic,
it’s the present his boy gets when he thinks he’s already gotten
everything, often the thing his wife thought they’d agreed not to get.
The favorite gift Voltaggio ever got? He shrugs that off. He says the best
thing he ever gave was last year, when he walked into a Frederick Walmart
and became one of the store’s layaway angels, asking to see the biggest
unpaid layaway ticket, putting it on his card and walking out of the store.
“For me,” he says, “it was the best feeling I ever had at
Christmas.”
This year the Voltaggio family expects more than 40 people for Christmas
Eve dinner, everyone clinking glasses in the family room as the fireplace
crackles, then sitting down together at a series of pushed-together tables,
sharing and passing platters.
Voltaggio, of course, will cook. He’s not certain what exactly, just
that he wants it to meet everyone’s “Top Chef”-ian expectations
with but-once-a-year, remarkable dishes that also have to be warm and approachable.
There will be his holiday non-negotiables — roasted meats, potatoes
of some sort, autumnal root vegetables. There’s a good chance he’ll
reinterpret a holiday dish he and his brother grew up on — their mother’s
sausage balls, little bites of savory meat and cheddar, crisped with something
he guesses was Bisquick. And he wants to somehow highlight his Italian heritage,
perhaps with a pasta or gnocchi.
“I wish I could talk to you next year when we’ll have a better
idea of ‘The Voltaggio Family Christmas’, ” he says. “This
year we’re going to create all of this.”
jill.rosen@baltsun.com
Bryan Voltaggio’s Brussels Sprouts and Chestnuts
Ingredients
10 small radishes, about
1-2 inches in diameter, washed
½ teaspoon sugar
4 tablespoons butter
½ teaspoon apple cider vinegar
¼ cup sliced blanched chestnuts
1 lb. Brussels sprouts, blanched and split in half
1 cup chicken/poultry stock
2 teaspoons chopped fresh -at-leaf parsley
½ teaspoon chopped fresh chives
Blanching Brussels sprouts
Measure out four times the volume of Brussels sprouts in water.
Place water in a pot that’s large enough for the Brussels sprouts to
be separated and easily stirred. Salt the water so it tastes like seawater.
Separately, -ll a bowl or casserole dish with 50 percent water and 50 percent
ice.
Bring the salted water to a rolling boil. Add the Brussels sprouts and cook
until tender, but not so long that they lose their bright green color.
Remove sprouts from the water and “shock” them in the ice bath
to stop the cooking process.
Leave in the ice bath until cool, then immediately remove from the ice bath
and reserve for later use.
Making the dish
Split the radishes in half from stem to root.
In a medium sauté pan, add radishes, sugar, one tablespoon butter
and the apple cider vinegar. Reduce to a glaze and until the radish is tender.
Remove and reserve in a bowl.
Add 2 tablespoons butter to another medium sauté pan over medium
heat. Start to froth the butter but not quite brown; add the chestnuts and
start to brown over very low heat. Stir constantly; remove from pan.
Add Brussels sprouts to the pan and place on medium heat. Slowly cook the
sprouts in the butter until lightly browned; add the chestnuts and toast lightly.
Add the radishes to the Brussels sprouts and chestnuts; add the chicken
stock and remaining butter. Reduce the stock until it creates a sauce consistency.
Season with parsley and chives and serve.