Friday, September 10, 2010

A Twist on Chicken Parm

It's finally cool enough to cook again! YAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!!!!
And to take really hot showers again!!! YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!!!!!!!
(I really have missed both of those things for the past 4 months or so...)

The hubs, who is once more training for the NYC Marathon, is allowing me to ride my new bicycle (first new bike since I was about 12 or so!!!) along side him while he runs, and this morning we did a 6.5 mile circuit, turning around within about 15 blocks of the George Washington Bridge. I felt quite virtuous for not only getting outside, but exercising to boot. (Usually me = sloth)
So, I am rewarding myself with curling up with a book while enjoying a fresh batch of asparagus soup. Bring on the fuzzy socks!
Tho I guess before the fuzzy socks, I should actually write about food... OK.

I have definitely shown you this version of cooking grape tomatoes before. Just to show how many ways you can use them, I decided to make chicken parm out of an extra package of tomatoes I bought.

In a pot with a good drizzle of olive oil, on medium high heat, add your tomatoes and place the lid on top. Cook until you hear the tomatoes bursting.

Once they have burst, I season with salt and add one to two cloves of garlic (depending on size and your taste), grated on a microplane. (Lower the heat to medium.) After the garlic has cooked a bit, I add a splash of white wine and then use a potato masher to crush the remaining bits of tomato.

I cook the sauce down another few minutes to make sure all the flavors combine and that the wine cooks out a bit.

While all of that is happening, I cooked up some chicken breasts in olive oil with minced shallot and seasoned with salt. For basics on how to cook chicken, read my Cooking Basics post, specifically scan down to the part on Meat.

When the chicken is about 2 minutes from completely cooked through, I placed slices of fresh mozzarella over the chicken, added a lid to the pan, and melted it down.
You could employ a broiler here instead, but I thought the lid would be faster.

I transfered the mozzarella-covered chicken breasts to plates, and shaved some fresh parmigiano reggiano over the top. Next I ladled some of the tomato sauce over the top.
Grate a little more parmigiano reggiano over that, and sprinkle with fresh basil.

A tasty & healthy spin on a classic.


2 comments:

Chuck said...

Man does that sound good! Wish I haad some chicken in the house...and all the other stuff!

RocknRollGourmet said...

In my house, those ingredients are basically ALWAYS around. It's always an option for dinner in one form or another.