| Kyle Faehnle with his Italian paella (Photo: J.D. Pooley/Sentinel-Tribune) |
Paella is a traditional Spanish dish – a tasty mix of different seafoods with sausage, vegetables and
rice.
So what’s an Italian restaurant’s head chef doing serving it to customers?
Being creative, that’s what.
"Traditionally the Paella is a Spanish dish and it’s one of my favorite things," said Kyle
Faehnle, 30, chef at DiBene-detto’s Italian Restaurant in downtown Bowling Green. "I love this
dish! We did it in culinary school and I’ve been making it for years."
The Spanish version is normally made with saffron, a bright yellow seasoning. "Instead, I made it
with roasted red tomatoes for that bright red color" Faehnle said of his Italian version.
To differentiate further, he uses Arborio rice, an Italian rice "traditionally used to make risotto.
So I’m essentially making this paella risotto style. Once the rice is cooked you finish it with parmesan
cheese and butter."
So far, "I’ve served it in the restaurant two times now" as a specialty of the evening.
"Both times it sold out! I’ve sold 15 dinners each time; it’s been a huge hit."
The last time he made the Italian paella at Di Benedetto’s was about a month ago and he’s decided he’ll
feature it again this Friday.
So there’s a perfect opportunity to sample the dish before you go out and buy all the ingredients to make
it yourself, since this week’s Cook’s Corner offering involves a big enough commitment in time and money
that it’s worth understanding in advance what the finished product should taste like.
Chock full of lobster tails, shrimp and scallops, it’s a seafood lover’s dream.
Faehnle acknowledged that "not everybody knows how to cook a lobster," and in that case, using
frozen lobster tails will work just fine.
As far as where to buy the seafood, Faehnle said "Kroger is probably your best bet in Bowling Green.
It usually has pretty decent seafood." Another option is Rohr’s Fish Market in Toledo. "My
father gets all his seafood from there."
The other aspect of this dish that involves careful attention is the rice.
"Risotto is something you can’t walk away from," Faehnle cautioned. "It’s very time
consuming. You have to have it on low heat and add ladles of stock one at a time. If you add too much,
you’re essentially boiling the rice and you won’t have the creamy consistency the rice should have.:
At the restaurant Faehnle oven roasts the tomatoes slowly and then smokes them with cherrywood chips,
"which gives it a nice sweet-smoky flavor.
"I left that out of the recipe," he said of the smoking process, to make it easier for home
cooks.
A Toledo native, Faehnle moved to Bowling Green after high school and lived here for five years before
his "culinary school adventure" at the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology in Calgary,
Canada.
"I had a friend. He has dual citizenship and he was a student there at the time. I was looking for a
change of scenery" and was persuaded to take culinary training in Alberta as well.
Faehnle got his degree in December 2009 and found something else in Alberta as well – a bride.
He married fellow culinary student Yunju Kang, originally from South Korea.
"We graduated top of our class together."
Faehnle, who at one time worked at Easystreet in Bowling Green, got a chef de partie position at a
private golf club following graduation. He cooked there for one season and then got into a conversation
with Chris Di Benedetto.
"He mentioned he was looking for a head chef" and the rest is history. "I’ve been there
for about a year" and is hugely enjoying "the freedom I have to kind of do whatever I
want," menu-wise.
"The stuff I’ve been doing lately isn’t really available in Bowling Green. I’ve been trying to bring
a kind of upscale, but casual, feel."
In the future, he said, his bride will be making pastries and desserts for the restaurant.
Italian paella
Yield – 4 servings
3 chicken breast, cut into 1/2 inch chunks
1 lb. mild Italian sausage, cut into chunks
12 shrimp, peeled
12 bay scallops
1 lb. fresh mussels
4 fresh lobster tails (frozen tails will do), shells removed
1 cup frozen peas
1 pint grape tomatoes, cut in half
1 medium sized red onion chopped
8 cloves garlic chopped
1 1/2 cups Arborio rice
1 cup dry white wine
6-8 cups chicken stock
Fresh thyme, basil, parsley chopped
1/2 cup parmesan cheese
4 Tbsp. butter
Salt and pepper, to taste
Olive oil
Heat 4 tbsp. olive oil in a large saute pan, season chicken with salt and pepper and sear until golden
brown. Remove from pan, add a little more oil to pan and brown the sausage the same way. Remove sausage.
Using the same pan, saute onion, garlic until translucent. Add tomatoes and cook for 2-3 minutes. Add
rice and cook for 2 minutes, add wine and reduce by half.
Add one cup of hot chicken stock, stirring often, cook on medium heat until stock is almost absorbed.
Repeat step 3 until rice is 3/4 cooked.
Put chicken, sausage, shrimp, scallop, mussel and lobster into the pan. Add remaining stock and simmer,
stirring often until rice is cooked and chicken and seafood are just cooked through and all the mussels
has opened. Take off the heat.
To finish the Paella, add peas, fresh chopped herbs and parmesan cheese. Slowly stir in butter until just
incorporated. Season with salt and pepper and dig in!
