Sunday, March 28, 2010

Parmesian Chicken with Homemade Maranara Sauce


As many of your know, K and I are both Italian and let me tell you we LOVE Italian food. Here's a recipe that is so fresh, delicious, and very easy to make. You will look like a super star when making this dish, so make sure you invite many people over so you can brag about your culinary skills.

Recipe:
Marinara Sauce

1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 large onion, finely chopped
3-4 garlic cloves, finely chopped
2 stalks celery, finely chopped
2 carrots, peeled and finely chopped
1/2 cup cooking wine (optional)
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2 large cans crushed tomatoes
2 dried bay leaves

Heat the olive oil in a large pot on med-high heat, add the onion and garlic and saute 10 minutes, stirring frequently.


The secret ingredient to this recipe is the carrots and celery. You don't taste either ingredient in the final sauce but it adds that meaty texture which makes this sauce so good! Chop the carrot and celery, I usually just toss them in my food processor, and add them to the onions. Add the salt and pepper, stir and add the cooking wine. We have tried it with red and white wine, both are delicious. Allow it to cook for another 10min until the vegetable are soft and the alcohol has cooked off. It will look kind of like baby food at this point so don't worry if it doesn't look appetizing yet.


Add the can of crushed tomato and bay leaf. Turn the heat down to low and let it simmer uncovered for 1 hour, stirring occasionally.



This recipe makes a lot of sauce, but you can always freeze what you don't use and save it for later.

Parmesan Chicken:
10-12 Chicken tenders
1 cup Milk
2 eggs beaten w/2 TBS water
1 cup flour
1 cup seasoned bread crumbs
1/4 cup Parmesan cheese 
Olive oil

Pre-heat the over to 375 degrees. Mix the breads crumbs with the Parmesan cheese, and set up 4 dishes with the milk, flour, egg and bread crumbs. Take each piece of chicken and dip it in the milk, flour, egg wash and finally the bread crumbs.

Drizzle olive oil in a baking dish and place the breaded chicken tenders in it. Drizzle a little more olive oil on top of the chicken.

Bake the chicken uncovered at 375 until golden brown, about 30-40 min.


Serve the chicken over your favorite pasta and top it with the marinara sauce.

We made this dish when our friends C- Puppy & his wife R came into the city. It was perfect because we made the sauce the night before and the chicken the night of. We had leftover sauce which we put in a container and placed in the freezer. Enjoy!

6 comments:

juliana inman said...

Hi Bekah and Kyle! Thanks for posting a link on you facebook page. I added your blog as one to follow. Another one you might enjoy very much is David Lebovitz (former pastry chef for Chez Panisse, cookbook author, now lives in Paris)http://www.davidlebovitz.com/
He wrote a great ice cream book, which is how I found his blog.

Cody Paredes said...

I've used David Lebovitz's crepe recipe it is really good...

B&K said...

Thanks so much!! We will def. be checking out that blog!!

Jeremy and Amanda said...

Hey guys! Thanks for the chicken parm recipe. I love it! I made it during Easter week when I was in Cali. I served it with Balsamic potatoes instead of pasta and made an Italian "salsa" (roma tomatoes, basil and spices) to go on top of the chicken. Thanks so much! Love you both... we keep thinking about heading out to San Fran so I will let you know when for sure!
Mands

Unknown said...

Made it tonight! I'm extremely airheaded and rarely check ingredients before starting a meal so... I used apple juice instead of cooking wine and fresh tomatoes chopped up instead of canned. I also forgot the parmesan cheese and only had 1/3 of an onion... (Even though the cheese is kind of a main ingredient in the recipe, hence the name).

Regardless, it turned out great!! The chicken was perfectly crunchy but not dry. Next time, I'll plan ahead and chop the vegetables even smaller. Thanks for the great recipe!!

Cyndi Boyer said...

From the dates on the previous posts this is a recipe that has been out here for a while. I had a bunch of fresh tomatoes from my garden and chicken in the fridge, wanting to try my hand at homemade marinara. Your recipe fit the bill. I have to say two thumbs up, this was a fantastic meal, the chicken tenders were to die for... Panko bread crumbs made them awesome. Thank you!