Food Notebook's Chicken Parmigiana

An hour before lunch time a couple of days ago, I found myself staring at the open ref again. There was half a chicken marinating in the fridge so it was clear that we were having chicken for lunch. As for how it was going to get cooked, it depends on whatever I was in the mood for and of course, on whatever was available in the ref and pantry. Inspiration and necessity my tools for innovative cooking. Sure, there are failures once in a while but the good meals are always worth it. This chicken dish is one of those pretty good meals.

I had pesto, a block of Ques-O cheese, tomato sauce, some tomatoes, and sourdough baguette. Inspired by Life Coffee and Tea's Chicken Parmigiana, I set about making my own version of this Italian dish.



Food Notebook's Chicken Parmigiana

Ingredients

1/2 chicken, deboned
2/3 cup soy sauce
juice of 4 calamansi
4 cloves of garlic, minced
salt and pepper

1/2 cup flour
salt and pepper

1 egg
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup flour

oil for frying

1 cup Del Monte tomato sauce
1 tomato, sliced into discs
1/2 cup pesto sauce
1 cup grated Ques-O cheese

Procedure

Mix together soy sauce, calamansi, ginger, salt, and pepper. Divide deboned chicken into approximately 4 fillets. Marinate chicken overnight in soy sauce mixture.

Combine 1/2 cup flour with salt and pepper. Dredge chicken in flour mixture.

Beat together egg and water. Blend in flour, mix together until batter is smooth. Dip dredged chicken fillets in batter until well coated.

Pre-heat oven to 200 degrees celsius.

Fry chicken until golden brown.

Slather about 1/4 cup tomato sauce in bottom of baking dish. Arrange fried chicken fillets on top of tomato sauce. Cover chicken with remaining tomato sauce. Spread pesto sauce on top the tomato sauce layer as evenly as possible. Lay tomato slices on top of pesto layer, about 2 tomato slices per chicken fillet.Cover generously with grated cheese.

Bake chicken for about 30 minutes. Serve with warm sourdough baguette slices.