Chicken Parmigiana or Chicken Parmesan, is not an unusual dish. However, it is a dish I have not made for many, many, many( I would write ,many again ,but do not want to be repetitious) years.
Not sure why I thought of making this long ago favorite dish…Oh! I remember! My son’s birthday was Sunday, so I had to make dinner and have a birthday cake for him…traditionally the birthday person gets to choose what they would like to have for dinner. My son, of course, is no real help, he could not make up his mind and for some reason did not ask for hamburgers, or pizza. Whatever, chicken parmigiana was not his choice, it was mine.
I knew he liked chicken cutlets, and I thought, I have not made CP for many, many( OK, won’t go into that again).
Of course I must have been somewhat delusional when I made the choice to make this dish. I forgot how much work chicken Parm would be. Parm is not exactly a dish that you can just throw together in one pot and serve.
Now we are a total of 14 people, and I was not sure how much chicken breasts for the cutlets I needed to purchase, so I bought 5 lbs , or two large packets of breast which happen to be on sale at Stop ‘n Shop, so I lucked out. Now slicing the breasts into cutlets that is where I did not luck out…what a job!
I really thought I was ahead of the game, I bought what I needed on Friday and was going to start preparing the dish on Friday, for Saturday evening, so I would not be overworked on the event day.
Now why did I not remember that when you make plans life decides to have other plans. I forgot that I had my grand kids on Friday. The grand kids were also sleeping over because my son and his wife decided they needed to get away.
Believe me baby sitting is never a problem, but when you have to prepare a dish that takes time and effort to create with two children running rampant, well let’s just say it does not fry easily.
As I prepared the dish my grand kids took on a life of their own. All I kept thinking was this dish is not going to come out right. However I struggled on.
I started at around 6 am and finally finished with my CP creation by 11 am…Holy, I could not believe that it was over when it was over. Slicing and frying 5 lbs of cutlets, preparing a large pot of sauce, and cutting up a block of mozzarella was in short a lot of work. On top of all that I had to keep 4 pairs of eyes on the grand kids…so 4 hours of prep time, not so bad. My only concern after it was all prepared was, “How will it taste?”
Happy to report the Parm got a thumbs up…even I gave it a thumb up…the Chicken Parmigiana was worth all the work and work it was.
I am sure the everyone pretty much knows how to make Chicken Parm, but here is how I made it. You will need the following:
Chickenbreast (cutlets), bread crumbs, eggs, frying oil, mozzarella and let us not forget the red sauce ( you can prepare fresh red sauce or purchase a jar of Barilla marinara) I did make a pot of fresh red sauce..
Rinse the cutlets with water, then dip cutlets into a bowl with a beaten egg.
Then quickly place cutlet in a dish of bread crumbs…cover with crumbs on both sides.
I used oil to fry the cutlets…just a few minutes on each side…lightly browning.
Fry all the cutlets up and as they are ready pile on a plate…once all cutlets are fried you can then begin to prepare layering the dish with your cutlets.
Put some red sauce on the bottom of your dish, then begin to add the cutlets, depending how large the dish, your number of cutlets can vary…after you have one layer cover cutlets with red sauce and sprinkle with sliced mozzarella.
Begin to add more chicken on top of chicken, add sauce, more mozzarella. Sprinkle with grated cheese…
Cover with aluminum foil and bake in oven, temperature of oven at least 375 degrees and cook until mozzarella is melted…usually takes about 40 – 45 minutes…Chicken parm is usually served over spaghetti, so get the water boiling.
Once ready cut up some garlic bread.
If you have not made Chicken Parmigiana in a very long time, like me, go ahead try it and don’t cut corners, or should I say calories…ENJOY!!