Monday, November 20, 2006

Chicken Parmesean: A lot easier than you'd think

OK, so I've seen my wife make this a couple of time and I thought I'd give it a shot. More to the point, I ended up doing it. Yes, I was sceered of screwing it up....it's Chicken Parmesan for goodness sake.

4 chicken breasts
1 Cup flour (all purpose)
2 Cups Italian Bread Crumbs
2-3 eggs beaten
2 Tbl spoons EVOO (Extra Virgin Olive Oil)
1 jar marinara sauce
1 cup of shredded Parmesan cheese (not the powdery stuff)

First pre-heat your oven to 350 degrees. Then, take some saran wrap and put it on top of 2 plates (this is a good trick to make clean-up go quicker) pour bread crumbs on plate and flour on the other. Put eggs in square dish or wide bowl, beat w/fork or whisk. Now, take about 2 feet of saran wrap and place chicken breast and fold it over. Take a meat hammer (tenderizer) and pound the chicken flat. (Trust me!)

Now, dredge the chicken in the flour, dip it in the egg wash and then in the bread crumbs....set it up like an assembly line. Just so you know, I made the mistake of only using the bread crumbs. I did bread crumb, egg, bread crumb style of breading, but after talking with my friend Tim...he reminded me that the flour is like the primer for breading. Any time you're going to bread anything, dredge it in flour first; this helps the breading stick. That's what caused my breading to come off so easy.

While you were breading your meat, you should have a skillet heating up the EVOO. When that's good and hot, place the chicken in the skillet about 2-3 minutes per side. Once you have all your chickies browned, place in 9"x13" pan, pour jar of marinara over it and coat the top of that with cheese. Place in oven (hopefully pre-heated to 350 degrees) and cook for about 20 minutes. That should give you plenty of time to get the angel hair pasta cooked al dente (or whichever stringy pasta). Once the cheese is melty and browning on top, remove from oven and serve over pasta.

Open a nice red (Cabernet is a typically a good choice) and impress your friends with your culinary know how.

Has anyone tried any of the other two?

3 comments:

Amanda said...

I sure hope Kevin (massivetruth) reads this...

Chicken Parmesean is my all time favorite meal. And I've slaved over the stove many a night so that my family can enjoy it w/out having to shell out $40 at an italian restraunt. And then this conversation happened one night at the dinner table...

Kevin: "Honey, I have a secret..."

Me: "...?"

Kevin: "I don't like Chicken Parmesean."

Me: "?!?!?"

Kevin: "Don't hate me."

Anonymous said...

I have read it and you are doomed.

Trig said...

Photos are what is wanted! And videos if you can. Thanks for the link.