Let's Make Dinner

For New Years Eve I made chicken parmigiana. I made the dish using a combination of recipes from my Fannie Farmer cookbook I received for Christmas and a eggplant parmigiana dish I made about a year ago.

First I needed tomato sauce. I made this by sauteing half a yellow onion for a couple minutes then adding three diced vine tomatoes. To this I added oregano, thyme, black pepper, and garlic. This simmered for a good 20 minutes.

While the tomato sauce was simmering I took two chicken breasted and pounded the hell out of them. I needed to get them flatter and to a consistent thickness so they would fry and cook evenly. Also its time to get the oven preheated top 350.

Once the chicken flat, one at a time, I drug them through a beaten egg and coated them with a mixture of store bought Italian bread crumbs and shredded Parmesan cheese. I then put them in a pan with preheated olive oil to fry. They should be browned and mostly cooked through.

Next comes the layering. In a 8x8 baking dish I spooned in some of the tomato sauce. Just enough to have a layer under the chicken. Place the fried chicken breasts on this layer of tomato sauce.

Now, here's where some improvisation comes into play. Fresh basil! I placed fresh basil leaves over the chicken.

On top of that I sprinkled more Parmesan cheese.

Over the Parmesan I placed two slices of provolone cheese. This will keep the basil and Parmesan in place.

Over the provolone I ladle in the rest of the tomato sauce.

Over the sauce I add another layer of Parmesan and one slice of provolone. This all goes into the oven for 15 - 20 minutes.

HINT: From a guy who spent many years without a dishwasher and now has pots and pans that are not supposed to go into the dishwasher, now is a great time to start cleaning up. No body likes to do so after dinner and at this point you are in the kitchen and in work mode.

With this I chose not to have pasta which is the classice sdie. I instead chose to roast some asparagus with it. I put it in on a pan coated in olive oil with black pepper and garlic powder.

This is what the finished chicken parmigiana looks like.

Here it is on the dish. It was very, very good. Next time I do it I will make sure I flatten out the chicken breasts a bit more. They probably need to get down to 1/2 inch. Also, a little thicker layer of basil.