I often go to the Plana FORMA studios with my friend Mika, and because it's so early in the morning (we usually go at 7:30am) it isn't strange for her to come over for breakfast or brunch. A lot of the time we just eat what has been prepared or I make us some open faced sandwiches, but there are some glorious days that we decide to whip out the pans.
Yes, we are called Thigh Warriors at Plana FORMA. Secretly, it thrills me.
Moving on. Mika has been craving
Chicken Parmesan for the longest time and we've been procrastinating getting ourselves together to cook for a while now! Finally, we found the time this week after a workout. Here we go!
Prep the breading for the chicken. One bowl with flour, salt and pepper. One bowl with breadcrumbs (fresh or packaged, anything that floats yer boat) and Italian herb seasoning, or whatever herbs you'd like to add. One bowl with a beaten egg.
Grate the cheese (or you could just grate it straight into the sauce pot later, and over the chicken). We used a mix of mozzarella and quickmelt. Cause I love quickmelt.
Pound your chicken fillets / breasts in a ziploc bag. I didn't have a mallet, so used a wide knife instead. Lovely way to get all your anger out. I didn't have much anger that day though (nor do I ever) so it took quite a while to get the chicken as flat as I wanted them to be. Hah!
**edit**
For clarification, what I mean by using a wide knife is
not whacking the chicken fillets with the knife itself... Hahaha! But rather hold the knife steady, resting on top of the chicken with one hand, then with the 'heel' of your other hand kinda bang it down. Thump? Thud? You feeling me here?
Chz.
Pat the chicken fillets dry with a paper towel so that they aren't dripping wet, but are still moist enough to pick up a coating of flour. Season both sides with salt and pepper.
Use one hand for the
dry mixes and one hand for the
wet parts.
What I mean by that is pick up the chicken (wet) with your
left hand and put it in the flour.
Then use your
right hand to coat the chicken in flour (dry), as well as to slide it into the beaten egg.
Go back to using your
left hand to flip the chicken in the egg (wet) and completely coat it, then transfer it into the bowl of breadcrumbs.
And finally, use your
right hand again to evenly coat the chicken in breadcrumbs (dry). Scoop some over the top and flatten, as well as flipping the chicken over so both sides touch all the breadcrumbs. Be liberal!
By doing this, you'll avoid getting some kind of glutinous sticky mess on all your fingers. Trust me, being lazy in this step is a no-no. You'll get gunky crusty hands that are hard to wash! Yaaaacksssss.
Have a plate ready to put all your breaded chicken fillets.
Oooooooh, look at that generous pat of butter in the pan ready to be melted!
Fry both sides of the chicken until golden in butter and extra virgin olive oil.
Set the chicken aside so you can get your sauce started.
Using the same pan that you cooked the chicken in, sauté the onions and garlic in more butter and olive oil. Using the same pan means a greater depth of flavour will be present in the sauce, but just be sure to remove (if any) the burnt morsels left from cooking the chicken. Cook through for a few minutes until soft and then...
Add a splash of red wine! Let this cook and reduce to about half, it will develop a much deeper brown colour.
Add in the tomatoes. Here, we used two cans of diced tomatoes and just manually mashed most of it up with a fork. This lets you control how chunky you want your sauce, because sometimes the consistencies between different brands are quite different. All up to you!
Stir to combine and allow it to simmer for a few minutes over medium heat.
Sugar in next. I learned from the Pioneer Woman that this contrasts the natural acidity of the tomatoes. I love it! I just eyeballed the amount needed for this, tasted, then readjusted again for flavour - seasoning well with salt and freshly ground pepper.
Add in some grated cheese, but be sure to have some to top the chicken with later on!
Chopped basil. Originally, Ree uses parsley, but we grow our own fresh Basil here at home and I really do love the smell and flavour of this. Mix everything together well.
Because Ree's recipe is actually a pasta topping, I served our
Chicken Parmesan quite differently. One layer of the tomato sauce, topped with the chicken fillets, topped with grated cheese (don't do yourself a favour by going easy on this stuff - pile. it. on.), topped with more tomato sauce!
The fresh-off-the-stove tomato sauce will
melt the cheese while it's being served. If this were in a cooking show on the lifestyle network, that'd be your cue to start clapping manically at the genius of it all.
I wish we got a better picture, but look at the strings of cheese as you pick up a piece of chicken! Yum!
This is golden. This is what we were born for. To indulge ourselves in any and all methods of melting cheese. I know you're silently agreeing with me as you read this.
This was delicious. So delicious. A little bit sweet, but with so many different flavours working together. I loved it. My only concern at this point was how watery the tomato sauce got... Didn't anticipate that, so for the next time I make it, I'll drain most of the liquid from the cans and just keep adding it into the sauce as I go.
Aside from generally liking to deviate from recipes in the kitchen, we also changed things up because we gathered ingredients with only a general idea of what was in chicken parmesan, then found one to cook with after we got home.
I'd like to comment on how well it kept in the fridge to be reheated over the next couple of days but I enjoyed it so much that I ended up eating the last two pieces of chicken for both breakfast
and lunch the next day... But I'd suggest that if you were making a lot, or think you might have leftovers, only serve (sauce over cheese over chicken over sauce) the amount you're going to need at the time. This is so that you can store the sauce and chicken separately, cause otherwise it'll go really soggy. Not that I had any complaints though. It was still really good. Really. I promise.
Here's the recipe! This is quite simple, and I think now that I've made it once and gone through the motions, it won't be hard to whip up really quickly for family or friends.
Chicken Parmigiana*
Adapted from
The Pioneer Woman Cooks (isn't she dreamy?)
4-6 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, pounded flat
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
salt and pepper, to taste
1/2 cup olive oil
(we generally always use extra virgin olive oil at home)
2 tablespoons butter
1 whole medium onion, chopped
4 cloves of garlic, minced
(We used five. We're cheeky like that.)
3/4 cup wine, either white or red will do
(eyeballed this as well)
3 cans (14.5 ounce) crushed tomatoes
(we used two)
2 tablespoons sugar
1/4 cube chopped fresh parsley (
we used basil instead)
1 cup freshly grated cheese
1 pound thin linguine
(we omitted this since we'd just come from working out and wanted to keep things on the lighter side)
Mix flour, salt, and pepper together on a large plate.
Dredge flattened chicken breasts in flour mixture. Set aside.
At this time, you can start a pot of water for your pasta. Cook linguine until al dente.
Heat olive oil and butter together in a large skillet over medium heat. When butter is melted and oil/butter mixture is hot, fry chicken breasts until nice and golden brown on each side, about 2 to 3 minutes per side.
Remove chicken breasts from skillet and keep warm.
Without cleaning skillet, add onions and garlic and gently stir for 2 minutes. Pour in wine and scrape the bottom of the pan, getting all the flavourful bits off the bottom. Allow wine to cook down until reduced by half, about two minutes.
Pour in crushed tomatoes and stir to combine. Add sugar and more salt and pepper to taste. Allow to cook for 30 minutes. Toward the end of cooking time, add chopped parsley and give sauce a final stir.
Carefully lay chicken breasts on top of the sauce and completely cover them in grated parmesan. Place lid on the skillet and reduce heat to low. Allow to simmer until cheese is melted and chicken is thoroughly heated. Add more cheese to taste.
Place cooked noodles on a place and cover with sauce. Place chicken breast on top and sprinkle with more parsley. Serve immediately.**
*when I post these recipes, I'll always show the original. My adaptations will be noted either throughout the step by step photos, in italics by the recipes or both.
**there seems to be something wrong with the spacing of my recipe... I've tried over and over again to get them formatted with a single line in between each 'step' and... Who knows. I'm frustrated. What is this. Help?
