My Recipe Can Beat Your Recipe Up: Chicken Parmesan & Homemade Garlic Bread

With the sweet smell of romance and carnal passions still lingering in the air from Valentine's Day, I figured I would throw my lace panties into the ring and share this erotically charged recipe that I just cooked for the aforementioned holiday. Unlike some recent Pomp Culture forays into the food arena, this one will make women swoon and put some hair on your shaved chest. This recipe screams passion and desire, whereas Tarragon Carrots and Fried Rice scream serial killer and lonely despair.

This one is significantly more complicated and requires more pans, hands and rugged determination. Sack up (both figuratively and with groceries) and get ready to have your culinary world rocked. Gordon Ramsey would f*&#ing love it.

Chicken Parmesan

1/4 cup olive oil
1 medium onion, chopped
2 garlic gloves, minced
2 (Jason) bay leaves
1/2 cup kalamata olives, pitted (if you don't like olives you can leave em off, but these things rock)
1/2 bunch fresh basil
2 (28 oz) cans of whole peeled tomatoes, drained and hand crushed
Salt and Pepper (it also helps if you're listening to the rap sensation, Salt N' Peppa)
4 boneless chicken boobs
1/2 cup all-purpose flour (for God's Sakes, make sure it's all-purpose!)
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
1 tbsp water
1 cup dried bread crumbs
8 oz of fresh buffalo mozzarella, water drained (this makes it magic)
Freshly grated Parmesan cheese
1 lb spaghetti, cooked al dente

Directions:

Coat a saute pan in olive oil and turn heat to medium. When it gets hot, add the onions, garlic and (Jason) bay leaves; cook for about cinco minutos. Add the olives and some hand-torn basil. Add the tomatoes (you should have already hand-smashed these like an Italian grandmother); be careful when you dump them in, because they splash and get on your white shirt, which makes you curse wildly, which could ruin the moment. Cook for 15 minutes until thick and season with salt, pepper, a dash of sugar and of course, love.

While this is cooking, get the chicken ready. Put the breasts on a cutting board, cover them with a piece of plastic wrap and then beat the hell out of them with a meat mallet. I didn't have a meat mallet, so I used the handle of knife sharpener. This is potentially dangerous. They should be about 1/2 inch thick. Put the flour in a shallow (grave) platter and season with salt, pepper. Mix together. In a separate bowl, beat the eggs and water together until frothy like a rabid dog. Dump the bread crumbs on a third plate (this one can be of the paper variety to save on clean up) and season with salt, pepper and maybe some Parmesan if you're feeling saucy.

Get out a kick ass pan (a large cast iron skillet is ideal)and heat 3 tablespoons of oil over a medium flame. I ended up needing a lot more oil than this, so start with 3 and go from there. Dredge both sides of the chicken first in flour, then the egg mix and then the bread crumbs mixture. When the oil is hotter than hell, add the cutlets and cook for 4 minutes on each side or until golden brown. You might need two skillets for this. I did it in one, but it took a lot longer than 4 minutes since I crowded them in there.

Then, assuming that you are using a skillet that is oven ready, just ladle the sauce over the chicken directly in the pan (turn off the heat). Break the mozzarella ball into chunks and place liberally atop the concoction. Also sprinkle with as much or as little Parmesan and basil (careful with that stuff) as you'd like. Throw that bad boy into the oven (Preheat at 450) and cook for 15 minutes, until the mozzarella is bubbly. If you don't have a oven ready skillet, just transfer it from the skillet/pan to a more traditional baking/casserole pan before you put it in the oven. Serve atop spaghetti, which I'm not going to tell you how to cook.

I served this with homemade garlic bread. I bought a loaf of Vienna bread, and cut the bread diagonally (without cutting through the bottom) into 1-inch thick slices with a serrated knife. You can then spread whatever you'd like onto the slices. I combined 1/2 stick of softened butter, 2 teaspoons garlic, 1 tablespoon olive oil and 2 tablespoons of basil together and used that. Wrap it in foil and throw that in the oven, opening the foil for the last 5 minutes. The recipe called for 15 minutes at 350 (plus another 5 minutes unwrapped), but I just threw it in with the Chicken Parmesan at 450 and kept my eye on it. About 10 minutes and then another 5 with the foil unwrapped.

Serve with copious amounts of wine and enjoy.