Chicken Parmesan

While I was traveling in NY, I helped make dinner for me, my sisters, my friend Linh, and her friends. We made chicken parmesan with mozzarella sticks, green beans, and browned-butter pasta. We cooked for a big group of 8 and some left overs too.

Chicken Parmesan:

tomato sauce (you could use pre-made, canned sauce):

60 ounces tomato puree or sauce (doesn't have to be exactly 60 ounces)

1 1/2 onion (any type of onion, small sized)

3 cloves garlic

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon pepper

6 teaspoons dried, crushed oregano

2 teaspoons dried, crushed basil (optional)

2 teaspoons sugar (optional)

6 chicken breasts, skinned, boneless

1 can Italian seasoned breadcrumbs 

If you can't find any pre-seasoned breadcrumbs like us, use

12 ounces panko breadcrumbs or regular breadcrumbs

2 teaspoons salt

2 tablespoons garlic powder

2 teaspoons black pepper

5 tablespoons oregano

1 1/4 cup grated parmesan (leave some for topping the food)

5 cups all purpose flour

8 eggs

8 ounces mozzarella cheese, whole block or shredded

1. Chop the onions and cook them in some olive oil in a large pot.

 2. When the onions have browned, add the cans of tomato sauce or puree. Use some water to wash out the cans and put that in the pot too.  Add extra water if using tomato puree.  Cover and cook on high heat until the sauce comes to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium-low and add the salt, pepper, sugar, oregano, and basil. You could add other herbs like parsley and marjoram. Let it simmer covered for 30 minutes, taste and adjust as needed, and allow to continue simmering till you use it later.

 3. Meanwhile, prep the chickens. For convenience, buy skinless, boneless chicken breasts. If you buy them with bones, you'll have to trim that. Trim off excess fat too. Cut each chicken breast in half. Place in a ziploc bag and thin them out to 1/3"-1/2".  Use whatever you have to pound out the meat.

4. Set up your dipping stations. Place three shallow bowls in a line. The first bowl will have flour. The next will have beat eggs. The last bowl contains the breadcrumbs.  If you didn't find a can of seasoned breadcrumbs, just mix plain breadcrumbs with the seasonings in my list.  Fill the bowls about halfway. Don't fill the bowls too much or you will make a mess. You will probably have to refill the bowls later on.

5. Heat a pan with some olive oil. To make things go along faster, you can set up multiple frying pans. Or you can put a griddle over two burners, like we did. Dip your chicken in the flour, shake off the excess flour, dip into the egg, and then dip into the breadcrumbs. Cook the chicken breasts on the stove until both sides are nice and browned. It'll take about 3-5 minutes per side. Don't worry about the chicken being cooked all the way through. When each piece of chicken finishes browning on both sides, place the pieces in a oven safe dish. Try not to overlap the chicken. When you are close to finishing, preheat the oven to 400F.

 6. When the chicken is all browned, ladle the tomato sauce over the chicken. In my pictures, I have less sauce than what I wanted. The sauce will come up to the level of the chicken pieces. The mozzarella can be sliced as shown below or shredded. Bake the chicken uncovered for 25 minutes. Then, set the oven to broil and cook for 1-2 minutes. Be careful when broiling because the cheese can easily burn.

Bonus:
Hmm, we seem to have extra mozzarella. We bought two 8 ounce blocks. Why don't we cut the mozzarella into big chunks. Dip in flour-egg-breadcrumb-egg-breadcrumb. Fry on the stove on all four sides and finish them in the oven or toaster oven. Experimental mozzarella sticks!

 Happy eatings.