Giada's Chicken Parmesan

Chicken parmesan is an Italian-American classic. Chicken cutlets seasoned with lots of
fresh herbs, bathe in marinara sauce and cheese. My chicken parmesan is lighter and
easier to make than any you’ve had before and it’s even more flavorful.

So first thing I'm going to make is the herb oil. So we’re going to take some fruity olive
oil and some fresh herbs some lemony, piney flavored rosemary. And the rosemary adds
a lot of flavor. It’s one of the most popular herbs in Italian cooking. They use it in so
many different dishes but different kinds of meats and sauces and stews. Could you use
dried herbs? Yeah, you could but you'll be taking away that fresh, clean, herby flavor and
that vibrant green color.

We’re going to use about a teaspoon of each of these herbs. So a teaspoon of rosemary, a
teaspoon of thyme most dishes that are called “alla parmigiana” or parmesan style, most
of them are dipped in breadcrumbs, fried, topped with tomato sauce, some mozzarella
and some parmesan and then baked in the oven. And I’m going to do all those steps
minus the dipping in breadcrumbs and frying it. So it’s really important that I flavor my
chicken otherwise it can be kind of buoyant.

So I'm going to quickly just give a rough chop to my herbs just so I can mix them or
blend them well in the olive oil and then just spread them all over my chicken. There we
go. Now, give it a quick little whisk and a little salt and some freshly ground black
pepper. One more whisk, great.

Now to flavor my chicken, I'm just going to brush it right on the breast. I’ve used four
chicken breasts to get eight chicken cutlets and they're about half an inch thick that means
I'm going to cook them in the pan. They're going to be all crispy and almost completely
cooked through. So that way when it goes into the oven, it only takes about five minutes
to cook for all the flavors to blend and to get a nice cheesy thick outer layer.

Okay, now I just want to flip my chicken cutlets over and of course season the other side
as well. Okay.

Now, before I season the other side, I’m going to turn my skillet on, a little oil down.
We’ll raise the heat so that it’s nice and hot. It gives my chicken cutlets a nice brown
color and makes it crispy. Alright.

Now chicken parmesan is definitely an Italian-American concoction because in Italy we
don’t have chicken parmesan. We have eggplant parmesan, veal parmesan, not chicken.

Put our chicken in, here we go. Okay.

I need some mozzarella cheese. And you know what? I’m not using the fresh mozzarella.
I'm actually using just regular mozzarella you find in the grocery store. You know fresh
mozzarella has a lot of water in it so I'm just going to take that plastic off. And I’ve put it
in the freezer for a little bit just because it makes it easier for me to shred otherwise it can
fall apart if it’s too warm.

So just put it in a freezer for a couple of minutes it will make your life so much easier.
We’ll just grate a bunch of it. That should work because we’ve got our mozzarella ready.
The parmesan, I'm just going to grate right at the last minute over the cutlets.

Now, time to flip nice and brown. There we go.

Okay. It’s time to top off and I have some fresh tomato sauce that I made earlier in the
week or you could just use your favorite jarred tomato sauce. There we go, yummy.
Okay, just a little bit more over each chicken breast. Great.

Now, some mozzarella cheese on each piece. Now some parmesan cheese. And that
texture, that granular texture of the parmesan cheese is due to the aging. So about a
teaspoon and a half of parmesan over each cutlet. You definitely want to get that cheesy
topping.

Alright, now to top it all off we use about a tablespoon of butter. It helps keep it moist
and it gives it really beautiful brown color.

Okay. And I can smell the parmesan melting as well. Okay.

Now, I'm going to pop this and get a 500 degree oven so that all the cheese melts.