Chicken Parmesan? Meet Chicken Parmeroni!

Makes 4-6 servings, but may require math…

If the feds finds out how good Chicken Parmeroni is,they will take it from us in the interest of public safety and brainwash us into forgetting all about it. Parmeroni is incredibly tasty, nearly irresistible, so damned good … it’s dangerous. The what-used-to-be-noodles turns into a slightly crunchy coating, adding the perfect foil for the rich texture of the chicken. The cheese powder melds with the other flavors, providing depth rather than asserting an independent character.

Pasta’s a natural Parmeroni side dish. Consider a whole wheat or spinach pasta. In addition, a vegetable^[1] would be welcome (some say required).

Ingredients:

Directions:

1. In a small bowl, mix garlic or onion with cheese packet.  Set aside. 2. Use a coffee grinder to turn the dried noodles into dust.^[4]  You’ll probably have to do this in two batches.  Your grinder probably has coffee ground remnants in it.  It’s not going to really matter. Do you seriously think that a little coffee is going to upset the delicate balance of the cheese powder in this dish?^[5] What does matter is that you’ve got to pulverize the crap out of that pasta.  Once you’re satisfied that you have (it takes about 10 seconds in my Krups grinder), place the pasta dust into a wide and shallow bowl (like a soup bowl).  Add the crumbs and Parmesan and mix with your hand(s).  3. In a third bowl (again, shallow and wide … yes, this recipe dirties a lot of bowls), whisk the eggs with a fork.  4. Pour spaghetti sauce into a 13-by-9-inch baking dish and spread it around evenly. 5. Prep the chicken according to the number of servings you’re aiming at. See this note. 6. Set out yet another bowl, a medium-size mixing bowl this time.  Sprinkle some of the cheese packet mixture into the bowl.  Add a piece of chicken.  Sprinkle some cheese packet mixture on top.  Add another piece of chicken … keep this up until you’ve added all the chicken and used all the cheese packet mixture.  Toss the chicken with your hands, patting and rubbing it into the cheese.  Try to get each piece of chicken completely coated and try to get all the cheese onto the chicken.  You may not be able to do this quite perfectly, but try nonetheless. 7. Preheat the oven to 350.

Now the fun starts.

8. Heat 2-3 Tbs. oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat.  Grab a piece of chicken.  If there’s any cheese in the bottom of the bowl, grind that piece of chicken into it one last time.  Dip chicken in egg, turning to coat. Transfer to pasta dust mixture, turning several times to coat as heavily as possible.  Drop it into the skillet.  Repeat until your pan is full of chicken, without overcrowding.  (For me, that’s about three, possibly four pieces of chicken.)  Let them fry for about 1-2 minutes.  Flip.  They should be beautifully and deeply browned, but not burned.  Wait another 1-2 minutes for the same result on the flip side, and then transfer them to the baking dish, laying them atop the sauce.  If you have to slightly overlap those sons of bitches to get them to fit in the baking dish, that’s OK. The chicken will soak up a lot of oil as you fry it, so you will have to add more oil to the frying pan in between batches. 9. Once all your chicken’s been fried, if you have any of the pasta dust mixture left, sprinkle as much as a quarter cup on top of the whole thing.  Top that with the mozzarella.  If using sausage, pinch it into small pieces and distribute them into the areas between the chicken. Bake until chicken is cooked to 165°F, about 35 minutes. Enjoy!

Chicken Parmesan mutates into Chicken Parmeroni

If you’re thinking you couldn’t dare to be seen buying a box of mac and cheese, I urge you to hang around a grocery store parking lot and surreptitiously solicit college kids to buy it for you. Chicken Parmeroni is that good.

Notes: