Corn Soup

DAVID ZAMUDIO, ALMA COCINA LATINA

SERVES 4

If you’re not cooking with corn, it just isn’t summer. “Growing up, my grandmother would make me soups,” says David Zamudio, executive chef of Alma Cocina Latina. “This corn cream soup is inspired by one that she often made.” As soup recipes go, this one is incredibly basic, says Zamudio. “Boil all of the ingredients first, then blend and strain. It’s as easy as 1, 2, 3!” And if you want to turn this simple soup into more of a meal, you can do that, too. “The soup goes great with crispy cassava [yuca] bread,” he says. To finish it off, “Brush the cassava with butter and herbs to complete the flavor profile.”

INGREDIENTS

1⁄2 large onion

1 leek (white part only)

1 clove of garlic

4 cups of water

1⁄2 tablespoon salt

1⁄4 teaspoon pepper

1⁄2 teaspoon onion powder

1⁄2 teaspoon garlic powder

1⁄2 teaspoon Old Bay

7 ounces corn kernels, preferably cut straight from the cob
1 bunch cilantro, reserving some for garnish

DIRECTIONS

1. Dice the onion.
2. Slice the leek.
3. Boil all ingredients for about
30 minutes over medium to high heat, with exception of cilantro.
4. Add the cilantro, blend, and strain. 5. To garnish, add additional
cilantro leaves.

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Hottest Day on Record

CHELSEA GREGOIRE, DRINKABLE GENIUS

SERVES 1

“At first I thought about making a cocktail that
could stretch into fall, but then I remembered: August in Maryland is an absolute swelter!” says Chelsea Gregoire, who grew basil during quarantine. “My basil was immediately gigantic. To use some of that beautiful basil, I crafted this summer refresher.”

INGREDIENTS

2 ounces light rum (or any light spirit: vodka, gin, tequila)

1 ounce peach liqueur or peach juice
3⁄4 ounce lemon juice

3⁄4 ounce Campari

1⁄2 ounce green tea syrup, (see below)
2 large or 4 small basil leaves
3 dashes of Peychaud’s bitters

For Green Tea Syrup: In a small saucepan, bring 16 ounces of water to boil. Once hot, remove from heat, and add two green tea bags. Once steeped, remove tea bags. Put saucepan on low heat, and add 16 ounces of sugar. Stir until dissolved. Cool and store in refrigerator for up to three weeks.

DIRECTIONS

1. Add all ingredients to a shaker
or Mason jar with ice.
2. Close, and shake vigorously.
3. Pour the shaker contents into a Collins glass, adding more ice, if necessary. 4. Garnish with fresh basil.

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Rigatoni with Lobster, Eggplant, Burrata, and Pistachios

JULIAN MARUCCI, TAGLIATA

SERVES 2

For this recipe, Julian Marucci, executive chef at Tagliata, says he decided to focus on the combination of lobster and eggplant. “Eggplant has a natural bitterness that goes well with sweet flavors,” he says. “The remaining ingredients complement the lobster and eggplant.”

INGREDIENTS

Extra-virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons shallot, minced
1 teaspoon ginger, minced
1 teaspoon garlic, minced
1 tablespoon celery, minced
2 small eggplants, peeled and medium diced
1 tablespoon capers 1 ounce pistachios, toasted and chopped
11⁄2 ounces honey
11⁄2 ounces aged sherry vinegar
13 ounces rigatoni
2 lobsters, 1 pound each
1 lemon
1 piece of burrata
2 sprigs of fresh basil, small leaves
1 teaspoon chives

DIRECTIONS

1. Sauté shallots, ginger, garlic, celery in extra-virgin olive oil, carefully cooking to just sweat the vegetables without color. 2. Add eggplant to saute pan. Season with salt and pepper stirring frequently, cooking on low to medium heat.
3. Once the eggplant is soft and tender, add capers, nuts, honey, and vinegar. Taste and set aside
to be mixed with pasta.
4. Boil roughly five quarts of water, season with salt. Cook pasta according to package. Strain pasta and mix with eggplant mixture in a large bowl. (Don’t rinse pasta with water). Add some olive oil and stir. 5. Cool pasta in refrigerator.
6. Cook lobster in boiling water
for 9-12 minutes, depending on size of pot and lobster. Once cooked, chill in ice water, then clean and dice meat.

To Serve: Toss pasta with more olive oil, if needed. Add lobster meat, lemon juice. Plate in a large bowl, garnish with torn burrata, a drizzle of oil, basil leaves, and chives. Save tail meat to use as garnish.

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Chipotle Honey Chicken Tacos with Street Corn Salad & Bacon Guacamole

JOHNTAY BEDINGFIELD, LA FOOD MARKETA

SERVES 6

“This is an easy, approachable dish that’s clean and light,” says Johntay Bedingfield of his recipe. “I like to use one ingredient, like cilantro, in more ways than one. You can use stems for marinade and the leaves for the corn salad and guacamole.” And if you want to make the dish a little lighter, he sometimes swaps the mayonnaise for yogurt in the corn salad. “It’s tangy and adds a nice cream component,” he says.

INGREDIENTS

2 lbs. chicken (preferably thighs)

Chicken Marinade (yields about 12 ounces)
2 cans chipotle peppers
1 tablespoon adobo liquid (from chipotle peppers)
1 bunch cilantro stems
5 cloves garlic
1 tablespoon paprika
1 tablespoon Mexican oregano
1 tablespoon cumin
2 tablespoons honey
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1⁄4 cup white vinegar
2 limes, juiced and zested
1⁄2 cup extra-virgin olive oil

DIRECTIONS
1. Place all ingredients in blender or bullet. Mix well until smooth.
2. Use 1⁄3 of marinade to coat chicken. (Set aside remainder of marinade.) Cover and let chicken rest in refrigerator for 1 to 4 hours.

TO GRILL CHICKEN:
Heat grill. Oil or spray grill as chicken will stick a little because of the sugar and honey. Season chicken with salt and pepper. Grill for about 7 minutes on each side, depending on the thickness of the chicken. Allow chicken to rest 10 minutes before cutting. Dice chicken and toss with about
1 tablespoon of reserved marinade.

Street Corn Salad
4 ears corn (in husk)
1⁄4 cup mayonnaise or Greek yogurt

2 tablespoons chipotle honey marinade
1 teaspoon salt
2⁄3 bunch cilantro tops (minced)

DIRECTIONS
With corn still in husk, place corn in a container large enough to submerge in water. Allow corn to soak as long as the chicken.

TO GRILL CORN:
I like to grill my corn in the husk so it steams and keeps the corn tender while picking up charred notes from the grill. You want to burn the husk when grilling. Grill corn for 12-15 minutes, turning every few minutes. Allow to rest for 10 minutes to cool down before shucking husk off the corn. Once cooled and shucked, cut corn off cob. In a mixing bowl, mix mayonnaise or yogurt, marinade, salt, and cilantro. Fold in corn. Set aside for assembly later.

Bacon Guacamole
1⁄4 pound bacon

4 avocados

1⁄4 cup small diced red onion

1⁄3 bunch of cilantro tops (minced)
1⁄4 lime juice

DIRECTIONS
1. Cook bacon at 350 Fahrenheit for 14-16 minutes until super crispy, almost burnt! Once cooled, dice bacon into bits. 2. In a mixing bowl, add avocado, red onion, cilantro, lime juice, and bacon. Mix well. Cover with plastic wrap.

Tortillas
1. Place tortillas (double stacked) on grill for about 30 seconds on each side. Don’t be afraid of a little color. Wrap tortillas in a kitchen towel to keep them warm until ready to serve.

ASSEMBLY: Start with your tortilla, place a smear of guacamole, add chicken, and top with street corn salad.

The life of an elite chef spans far beyond all of the slicing, dicing, frying, and expediting that goes on behind the scenes at our favorite restaurants. With Father’s Day just around the corner, we talked to some of the city’s top culinary talent about what life is like away from the heat of the kitchen. These guys wear many different hats. They’re mentors, managers, and undoubtable food experts, but first and foremost, they are dads.

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PIZZA PROTÉGÉ

As a father of three and the executive chef of one of Hampden’s hottest haunts, Chad Gauss often has his work cut out for him.

“One thing I’ve learned is that I’m always where it’s most important to be,” says Gauss, executive chef and co-owner of The Food Market. “If everything at the restaurant’s going fine, I’m going to be at dance for my daughter’s recital.”

From baking cakes in the kitchen at home to embarking on RV road trips, Gauss says that quality time with his children—Chad, 12, Zoey, 6, and Maisy, 3—is key.

“We always go places together as a family,” he says. “I don’t really go anywhere my kids aren’t welcome.”

Although according to Gauss all of his kids have diverse tastes, with favorites like seaweed and miso soup, his daughter Zoey has the most sophisticated palate of them all: “I mean, she wakes up in the morning and says ‘I want duck,’ she’s a huge eater.”

The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree when it comes to the oldest, ‘Little Chad.’ Often tasked with cleaning local produce and shucking corn during frequent visits to The Food Market, the 12-year-old has even found his inner restaurant critic.

“One thing my son and I like to do together is we rate pizzas,” he says. “We go around and we rate local pizza shops and we base them off of Matthew’s Pizza.”

Gauss says being a chef and a dad keeps him youthful.

“I’ve matured in responsibility, but not at all in personality, so it really allows me to enjoy my job,” he says. “And I think it’s awesome that my kids have a dad that gets to be himself all of the time. I don’t have to be a different guy when I come to work.”

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OYSTER OVERLOAD

Well-known for his barbecue shrimp and grits and other signature brunch creations, Water for Chocolate owner and executive chef Sean Guy is a hangover hero in Upper Fells Point.

But aside from all of the accolades, his motto remains that he’s a dad first and a chef second.

His children, Taylor, 15, and Noah, 8, are all about chowing down on the goat cheese mac at Water for Chocolate, which is back up and running after suffering a fire in March, but he says that they’re not so big on the idea of global cuisine.

“We have a thing where we try to go to a different restaurant every other Sunday, and I always try to take them somewhere where they can try and appreciate a different cuisine, but Noah’s the guy that will spit it in his napkin and then go in the bathroom and fill his pockets with the mints, he really doesn’t care,” Guy says. “Taylor is really beginning to appreciate food a lot more. She had her first oyster already at The Oceanaire, and I wish I had a picture of the look on her face. It was like betrayal, like ‘Dad, how could you do this to me?’ I almost cried. But her palate is a little more developed than Noah’s.”

In order to spend as much time together as possible, Guy feels lucky to be able to structure the restaurant’s hours around his children’s schedules.

“During the week we’re open from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., so after 7 I’m doing homework, and opening at 10 a.m. gives me a chance to take them to school,” he says.

In between studying theatre at Baltimore School for the Arts and participating in Habitat for Humanity projects, Taylor squeezes in time to work at the restaurant as a hostess on weekends. Noah has recently started to break into the family business, as well.

“He’s been rolling silverware and starting to get involved, but he overcharges me; he’s trying to get fifty cents per roll, which is crazy,” Guy says.

Although it doesn’t always work out as planned, attempting to diversify his children’s culinary interests is one of Guy’s favorite hobbies.

“More so than cooking for them, I like going out to different restaurants with them so they can learn the sense of service to try different things.” he says.

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LITTLE LEARNERS

As the executive chef of Foreman Wolf hotspots Cinghiale and Pazo, Julian Marucci is no stranger to hard work—a value that he’s passing on to his oldest son, Luca, 4.

“Whether I’m in the kitchen or doing yard work, he always likes to lend a helping hand,” Marucci says. “We can sit outside and I can give him a bag of corn and he’ll just shuck the whole bag. Or I can give him a bag of cranberry beans and he’ll peel them all for dinner.”

The Marucci brood also includes Mia, 2, and baby Nico, 3 months. As they grow older, the chef feels it’s important to educate his children about how their food makes its way onto their plates.

“At Thanksgiving this past year, I got a turkey from a local farm with the head and feet on. The kids came into the kitchen and when I opened the oven to baste the turkey they saw the head, and they all started flipping out and giggling,” he shares. “I want to introduce these things to my kids so that they know where [our food] is from.”

Although bouncing back and forth between the two restaurants five days per week takes up the bulk of Marucci’s time, he looks forward to devoting his days off to tee-ball games, making Sunday dinner, and gardening with the kids.

“We’ll go out in the garden and pick herbs, or ‘seasonings’ as we call them, and then I try to explain that those green flakes and specs in our tomato sauce or whatever we’re making are the same herbs from our garden,” he says.

Looking ahead, Marucci is excited for his kids to eventually grow into little sous chefs.

“I can definitely see them coming in and helping with cleaning vegetables, picking filo beans, and picking peas,” he says. “And teaching them how to use a knife properly, that’s something I’m looking forward to.”

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PRE-SCHOOL PLANS

Despite a nine-restaurant franchise and buzz-worthy Top Chef success, Bryan Voltaggio is the quintessential family man.

Although meal requests from his children Thacher, 8, Piper, 3, and Ever, 1, often vary, Voltaggio says that one factor always remains constant.

“With the kids, I find that their favorite dishes are the ones that involve time with dad, so it’s more about the entire experience,” he says.

When it comes to Thacher, the self-proclaimed picky eater of the bunch, Voltaggio says that experimenting in the kitchen inspires him to “grab new things and put ingredients together in the moment.”(Which explains Thacher’s Coca-Cola potatoes recipe published in Voltaggio’s cookbook Home.)

“He’s certainly not sitting down and eating roasted sea bass with cranberries, that’s just not where he is at this point, but whenever you get hands-on is when it gets fun,” he says.

While the restaurateur’s 60-hour workweek often presents obstacles that stand in the way of family time, the Voltaggios always find a way to make it work.

“Breakfast is an important time for us, it’s the one meal of the day that we all share religiously,” he says. “Sometimes I need to sneak out of Friday night service to get to baseball for an hour, but then I just sneak back in before anybody notices I’m gone.”

He says that being able to use his restaurants as an educational outlet for his children is an added perk, as well.

“If you give a kid a mixing bowl they can go for hours. I think there are a lot of life lessons there, too,” Voltaggio says. “Measuring ingredients becomes fun for them, and they can take the things they’re learning in school and put them into practice.”

While it may seem that the Voltaggio kids are preordained for careers in the kitchen, the chef says he’s hesitant about how much he pushes the restaurants on them.

“As much as I want them to love what I do, I definitely don’t want to force it upon them because I never want them to feel that this is the profession that they have to choose,” he says. “Although, Piper at her preschool graduation, did say that she wanted to be a cook when she grows up.”