I love Italian food, but pasta sort of works my last nerve. I spend all this time preparing and cooking it, and three bites later, I am completely full?for 20 minutes or so. It pisses me off. Screw you, pasta, and the noodle horse you rode in on. I have also been looking for a healthier way to make crispy and breaded meat. Frying food in anything hurts my stomach, as well as the egg yolks used to bread the stuff, so chicken Parmesan was the perfect recipe to tackle and pin to the floor in a chokehold. I love polenta, and its Italian-ish, so that was an easy switch. For the breading, I dipped the chicken in seasoned flour, a slightly beaten egg yolk and my new favorite breading of choice, panko with a little Parmesan (Japanese bread crumbs that are SUPER crispy). I pounded a chicken breast flat so it would cook quicker, breaded them, and put them on a cookie sheet sprayed with oil under the hottest setting my oven has. Pounding them thin allowed them to cook quick and not dry out in the hot heat, while still crisping up the outside so it tastes like it is fried. Who is so smart? And hot? Me.
I made the polenta with chicken stock, Parmesan and black pepper, and added just a bit more chicken stock at the end to make it creamy (normally I would add cream, but again, dairy hurts me). Then I topped it with the chicken and a homemade tomato sauce. Voila! Chicken Parmesan ala kickass Leena. ~LTG
