Jarrod's Chicken Parma

This is a very easy and truly delicious dish that is perfect for a night of Italian feasting with friends or family, and I can't thank Jarrod enough for sharing it with us.

Here is Jarrod's recipe, which I doubled for my preparation:

quote:

Ingredients:

4 Chicken Breasts
Bread crumbs
Plain flour
Egg & milk wash
Salt and pepper
Bit of oil for cooking
Sliced ham
Tasty cheese for topping

For the Sauce:

2 cans of diced tomatoes
I large red onion diced
I large clove of garlic diced
1 teaspoon mixed herbs
1 Tablespoon tomato paste
Half teaspoon Oregano
Sugar to taste
1 Beef stock cube
Salt and pepper to taste

Method:

Start with the sauce:

Place onion and garlic in fry pan and cook till soft,add herbs.

Now add Tomatoes, beef stock cube and tomato paste and cook till nice and thick. Add salt and pepper and sugar to taste (normally will need a fair whack of sugar).

Next, butterfly chicken breast and beat out so nice and even (glad wrap helps).

Coat chicken breasts with flour and then dunk into egg mixture and then crumb.

Shallow fry till nice and brown and set aside.

Cook ham till nice and brown.

Place chicken breasts on a baking tray and place ham on top of chicken.

Spread sauce in a nice even layer over the top of the ham covered breast and then sprinkle with tasty cheese.

Place in oven(180deg C) till cheese goes nice and brown

One note on taxonomy/terminology. I wasn't sure if the "Parma" in this recipe referred to Parmesan cheese or town of Parma (Parmi) in Italy, where the famous hams are produced. On one hand, Chicken Parmesan is of course a very popular dish, but on the other hand, there is no Parmesan cheese in this recipe, but there is some lovely use of ham.

Wikipedia, while usually very helpful, didn't do much to clear up the issue (emphasis mine):

quote:

Parmi (Parma) is a city in the Italian region of Emilia-Romagna famous for its ham, its cheese, its architecture and the fine countryside around it.... Parmi is divided into two parts by the little stream with the same name. Parma's Etruscan name was adapted by Romans to describe the round shield called Parma.

I'll leave it to Jarrod, the author of the recipe, to clarify ~ or perhaps someone who knows more about Italy and Italian cooking than I do. All I know for sure is that this recipe is an absolute home-run knocked clear out fo the park, and it is worth trying!

To start with, as always, here are the goods, as per the recipe above:



It looks like a lot, but it really isn't, and with a little prep work, the procedures for this went by in very good time, making this dish a very "fluid," or easy-going recipe to prepare.

In the picture above, I intended to use proscuitto; however, I remembered that we actually had some Canadian bacon in the refrigerator that needed to be used:



I decided to go ahead and use the Canadian bacon, both to stick closer to Jarrod's recipe, and also to make good use of the Canadian bacon, which is of course extremely similar to ham.

After chopping the onion and garlic:



I got going on the sauce, which was very easy to prepare:



You want to get the sauce to simmering first thing, so that it will be rich, savory and fuill of depth, just in time for its marriage to your chicken.

While the sauce simmered in anticipation, I lightly pounded each chick breast between two layers of saran wrap:



Then, after a quick dip-and-shake in flour, then in egg/milk wash, then in breadcrumbs, I gave them the Milanese treatment in hot olive oil:



Meanwhile, I seared my slices of Canadian bacon a little on each side:



By this time, the sauce, chicken and Canadian bacon were ready, so I put this work of art together. First, I layered a little sauce on the bottom of a baking dish, then laid out my chicken:



Then, I placed two slices of Canadian bacon on each chicken breast:



And then I covered each chicken breast with sauce, topping with a shredded blend of Italian cheeses:



I repeated the assembly steps above for our second batch, which was nearly as beautiful as the first:



After this, I tossed both baking dishes into the oven at 390 degrees so that everything could get acquainted while the cheese melted and browned up a little. When the cheese was just about perfect, I removed this wonderful stuff from the oven:



Here's the second baking dish:



Up until now, things had been going so well, without a single flaw, and I thought I was home-free for a perfect meal. It was right about this time that fate decided to remind me that I am human, and when I went to serve the best-looking piece of chicken on the plate, it fell off the spatula and created a beautiful, sloppy mess! Because of this, I lost my chance for a nice plated picture; however, I think you will still be able to get an idea of how good this was:



As you can see, we served the Chicken Parma with mashed potatoes, although rice, pasta or - best of all - an attempt at risotto would have been good here.

Here's another shot that really gives demonstrates the rich goodness we experienced with this dish:



The meal tasted great - I cannot brag this one up enough! It was easy to prepare and a true pleasure to enjoy. One of the things I like about it best is that it really is home-made, from start to finish, and the loving care in preparation comes through in the results. Sure, a person could go get a jar of sauce, but where is the satisfaction in that, when a much better sauce is so easy to make? Following the outline here, anyone, and I mean anyone, can make this, and even an inexperienced cook will shine like a star and be a hero when everyone is dining.

Once again, my sincere thanks go out to Jarrod for sharing this; I urge anyone who enjoys Italian food to give this one a try - there will be no disappointments.

Made this one last night with proscuitto. It was delicious. Thanks for puttin it on-line.

say, sbt - i'm glad you liked it - easy and delicious - couldn't ask for more!