Cooking with Parma Daze #7 - 'Aussie style parma feat. Grated Philly'

 

Uh oh ... someone let me back in the kitchen.

If you're wondering where the 200th parma spectacular is then you clearly haven't listened to last week's episode of our podcast, Clucking Around, or checked our Facebook, Twitter or Instagram for the details (woah, all that self- promotion made me dizzy).

Long story short the 200th is gonna be a weekend thing, and to get everyone free on a weekend that isn't Grand Final weekend took some wangling, meaning we needed some non-official review posts in the meantime - but the 200th is scheduled for next weekend and should be uploaded sometime shortly thereafter, so be sure to stay tuned!

In the meantime, I've been experimenting. A few weeks ago the good people at Philadelphia (the cheese, not the state) contacted me telling me about a new product coming to Coles and Woolies soon - Grated Philly and Tasty.

I've been a Philadelphia fan for years - when Costco first opened a few years back the first thing I bought was a bulk-block of Philadelphia (around 2.5kgs) along with a bulk bag of bagels. For a few glorious weeks in late 2009 my life was consumed by cream cheesey goodness - So naturally when Philly offered me the chance to incorporate their new product into a parma I jumped at the chance.

Now I want to point out (in the interest of full disclosure) that we were not paid to write this review, but we did get a couple of bags of Philadelphia grated cheese on the house. Some bloggers get flown to holiday resorts on tropical islands. I get free cheese.

Rather than just knock up a standard parma I decided to do something different (we've already done a whole bunch of parmas in the past) and knock up an Aussie-style novelty parma. Now if you walk into most pubs that do novelty toppings the "Aussie" typically features bacon and egg, sometimes BBQ sauce - Don't ask me why it doesn't have Vegemite and beetroot, but the world can be a weird place sometimes.

I went out and stocked up on supplies...

• Chicken breast (1 per parma)
• Bacon (2 rashers per parma)
• Eggs (1 per parma and two for crumbing mixture)
• Breadcrumbs (I used Panko style crumbs, but whatever tickles your fancy)
• Napoli Sauce (Whatever your preferred brand of napoli will do, you could have a crack at making it yourself, but thats a lot of effort for 3 tablespoons worth per parma)
• Milk (for crumbing)
• Plain flour (also for crumbing)
• Whatever sides you desire with your parma
• Salt & pepper to taste

along with the reason we're all here - a bag of Philadelphia Grated Philly and Tasty cheese...

First step is to take your chicken breast & cut off the tenderloins. Now I like a bit of thickness to my parma and I feel bigger is better in this case - but if you want to be frugal you can slice the breast in half before the next step. Otherwise place the breast in between a few sheets of cling wrap and go to town with a meat mallet (or a rolling pin works fine as well)... Until it looks something like this -

Now prepare your fingers to get a little messy as we're about to set up your crumbing station.

Get two plates and a bowl, on one plate sprinkle some flour, along with a dash of salt & pepper to taste. On the second plate make a nice healthy layer of your crumbs. In the bowl crack two eggs and a dash of milk, then mix it all together with a fork until smooth.

Now lets get crumbing! Get your chicken and give it a light dusting on the plate of flour, then dunk it into the egg (make sure its completely covered) then into the crumbs. Flip it over a couple of times to be sure you get all-over coverage, by the end it should look something like this ...

Heat some oil in a fry pan (not enough to deep fry, but a healthy dash) to a medium heat and chuck on your schnitzel, it should make a very satisfying "TSHHHHH" sound as it hits the oil. Let it cook for a few minutes (use tongs to peek underneath and see how its going) then flip when its golden brown, looking something like this –

Once its cooked take it off the oil and give it a pat with paper towel to take away any excess.

Next up grab your napoli and give it a few healthy tablespoons - make sure that schnitzel is good and covered...

If you want to make it a BBQ parma now would be the time to give it a squirt of your choice of BBQ sauce, we're opting against that this time around but its your call.

Next up - the Philly, grab a few handfuls and make sure to give it a good, healthy coverage -

Crank up the oven (or grill, if you have one), chuck them under and watch the cheese melt.

While you're waiting grab your frying pan and fry up that delicious bacon...

Along with an egg. Now frying eggs have always been a mystery to me ... I don't know why but I can never do them justice. Scrambled? No problem? Omelettes? Hand me the pan - but fried eggs have always been a bit of an enigma. I gave it a crack (hah! egg puns) and it actually turned out pretty well.

Once the cheese has melted grab the parma out of the oven and chuck it on a plate - now we make our stack, pile on the bacon, top with the freshly fried egg and serve with your choice of sides (chips and garden salad seems to be a popular combo, but feel free to experiment. Mashed potato? Potato gems? Potato salad? Pasta salad? The options are endless - get creative!

Your finished product should look something like this -

Thoughts on the Philly?

Actually pretty good! (I know you must think I'm contractually obliged to say that, but I'm being honest) The Grated Philly and Tasty cheese mixture is spot on - the Philly's creamyness is off the charts, I normally like a tad more bite to my cheese but this takes it in a different direction, it’s just so damn smooth.

Everything else? Not to toot the horn of my own culinary skills but it all came out pretty well. The fried egg was actually one of the better ones I've produced (thanks to the YouTube video "how to fry an egg" ... you had some solid advice!) and the Japanese style panko crumbs gave it a fantastic crunch.

If you want to try the new grated Philly be sure to check out their Website for more cool recipes and their Facebook page for more info - I'm keen to give it another go and really get experimental with the toppings - A Sweet Chilli Philly parma? Hot damn that sounds tempting.

Well thats it from me for another week! I know its been a long time coming but we're heading out for our 200th parma review next weekend - It's gonna be fun so be sure to check it out (and if you want a little preview of where we're going it gets discussed at length on episode #2 of our podcast - Clucking Around).

Seeya!

The search continues...

Cooking with Parma Daze #6 - 'Chicken Parma Balls'

Hey guys! A few circumstances prevented us getting out to a new pub this week (including but not limited to someone ripping out one of my teeth with pliers. He was a dentist, but still), so apologies but no new pub this week. In the meantime, check out this unique attempt at a bite-sized parma recipe we stumbled upon...

Whether you're hosting a party, lost an arm in the war or just straight up have a vendetta against cutlery - there are (rare) times when a straight up regular sized parma just isn't appropriate.

So what do we do in those dark times?

A post on the 4 Ingredients facebook page piqued my interest a few weeks back - Chicken parma balls...

Looks damn good to me! I headed to the supermarket and picked up the ingredients...

The recipe is pretty darn straightforward. Everything but the napoli sauce and half of the parmesan cheese goes into a bowl

And is promptly smooshed up into what looks a lot like a chicken-mince rissole...

Then we divide the meat up and roll them into balls (makes 16)

Then spoon on some napoli sauce and straight into the waiting oven!..

After 15-ish minutes take them out of the oven, sprinkle on what cheese is left (I forgot to take a picture of this part, but I'm sure you can use your imaginations...) and back into the oven for another 5.

Voila! Chicken parma balls.

How were they?

Not bad, Definitely nowhere near as good as the Tater tot parma but plenty tasty none the less.

If I put on my chef's hat and could suggest some changes they would be to have a small pot of napoli as a dipping sauce, as opposed to solely on top, as after the first bite there really isn't anything but a chicken rissole in your hand.

If I could make an addition (and it wouldn't be too hard to guess)... Bacon. I think some diced, fried bacon mixed through the mince in the early stages would really give these balls a kick (ouch!).

Overall I'd call the chicken parma balls a success, and the next time I entertain will more than likely whip up a batch (incredibly easy to do!)

If you want to give them a go yourself you can find the recipe here (facebook link). Enjoy!

And we will definitely be continuing our search for Melbourne's perfect parma next week. Stay tuned!

Cooking with Parma Daze #5 - 'Tater tot & bacon parma'

Here at Parma Daze I like to think we have our social media bases covered. We've got a Facebook, a Twitter, a Pinterest, an Instagram, a YouTube channel and a tinder. Wait. Scratch that last one.

"But PD!" I hear you saying "I still don't feel connected enough to your site and all of your parmish escapades!"

Well, dear reader, I have you covered, as this week marked the launch of the Chicken Parma Subreddit. An open forum on Reddit, the self proclaimed "front page of the internet" where you can go and talk parmas. It isn't Parma Daze specific at all, so feel free to check it out and contribute! My hope is for it to become a hub of conversation on all things parmigiana. Recommendations, tips on good parma deals, the works.

Not long after launching the sub a user by the name of Stinx2001 posted something that caught my eye...

You can have a look at the original post by clicking this link, but here is a bigger version of the image in that thumbnail...

Bacon AND tater tots?

The post quickly shot up to the top of the subreddit, There was no question, I needed this parma inside of me.

Luckily Stinx2001 was kind enough to post his recipe in the comments -

I visited the supermarket, got stocked up on supplies and hit the kitchen.

As with all "Cooking with Parma Daze" posts, this is gonna be very photo-heavy, so prepare thy bandwidth (although If you've read this far the pictures have probably already loaded. Oh well!)

Now a couple of parma-specific products have appeared in the supermarket lately, so what better time to give them a go?

I was scared of that Chicken Tonight parmigiana cooking sauce - it looked too orange to be good on a parma.

But, as per the recipe the Wife was out for the night, so I got to cooking. (cue lots of photos...)

1. Cook potato gems in oven as per packet -

Check.

2. Flatten two chicken breasts, bread/crumb, cook in frying pan with butter and oil

Check.

Check.

3. Cook bacon

Check.

4. Once cooked, place Napoli (ideally home made, mine was from a jar), cooked bacon, and potato gems on top of chicken

Check.

Checkitty.

Check Check Check.

5. Add a stupid amount of different cheeses on top (I just had the one coon "parma blend", but I did use a stupid amount, a.k.a the whole packet)

Check.

6. Place under grill until cheese is at your preferred meltedness.

Check! (lost a bit of the stupid amount of cheese on the bottom of the pan, not to worry though, plenty survived)

All done! I plated it up...

It looked good. Out of all the home made parmas I've done for the site this is one that I've looked forward to tucking into the most. There were some extra tater tots, So I just used them as a side (I've mentioned it before, but tater tots go really well as a side to a parma!)

Verdict? It was awesome. The bacon, the cheese, the potato ... it all married together perfectly! If they have yet to award this years MacArthur Genius Grant then my vote is for Stinx2001 - lets throw the Nobel Peace Prize to him as well, he deserves it.

As for the parma-specific products used? The Coon parma cheese was great. It was grated finely, soft, and melted up perfectly. I should have left it a few more minutes in the grill to get it a little more golden brown on top, but I just couldn't wait that long - I'd definitely give it another go.

The Chicken Tonight napoli? Meh. It was okay, but the orange colour was very off-putting. It did its job and I can't really complain, but at no time did it stand out at all (although to be fair there were quite a few distractions on this particular parma). I've still got 90% of the jar left in my fridge, to be honest I'll probably end up tipping it on pasta after getting home from the pub on Sunday morning - and it'll probably work quite well.

Massive thanks to Stinx2001 for the recipe. You're my hero.

I'm calling this one an unmitigated success! If you want to stay up to date with awesome user-submitted discoveries like this be sure to have a gander at the new Chicken Parma Subreddit, and if you've got your own technique for a homemade parma, why not post it over there yourself!

I look forward to watching this community grow, I think its got a lot of potential and have high hopes for the future!

Cooking with Parma Daze #4 - 'Vegemite Aioli'

 

Lets get one thing straight from the get-go. There are a lot of Vegemite haters out there. This post is not for you. This is for the people who can't start their day without a smear of black gold on their toast, who grew up with Vegemite sandwiches in their school lunch box. This is a post for the Happy Little Vegemites.

Last Friday marked the 90th birthday for the quintessential Aussie spread, Vegemite. I saw an ad promoting 'creative ways to serve Vegemite' (the ad in particular suggested Vegemite on toast with smashed avocado) and it got me thinking... is there a way to incorporate Vegemite into a chicken parma? Perhaps making the iconic Australian dish even more Aussie.

I floated the idea on facebook and it was met with mixed responses, some of pure joy and others of utter disgust. After back-and-forthing a little I came to the conclusion that a Vege-parma might be taking things a bit too far, however another idea floated into my brain that I had to give a go.

Regular readers will know that I am a sucker for a good chip dip. Be it tomato sauce or any sort of aioli, a serve of chips will always get extra points if there is some sort of liquid sitting beside them for dipping. A few years back Smiths released Vegemite flavoured potato chips -

They were only 'for a limited time', but when they were available they were my chip of choice -Which, to me, was proof positive that the union of potato and Vegemite was meant to be, and what is better than cold potato chips? Hot chips!

Now there are two ways to make aioli. The easy way and the hard way. As I pretty much proved on the last cooking with Parma Daze I'm an 'easy way' kinda guy, so for this experiment we kept things simple...

Aioli is a fancy word for garlic mayonnaise, and I know this entire post is a really convoluted way of saying "I mixed Vegemite with Mayo", but bear with me. For the chips I went a little fancy and tried these new "Deli parmesan, garlic & basil" seasoned oven chips - I figured if the aioli was a disaster I could at least have some decent tasting chips for dinner.

So ... lets get this started.

First up, a bowl of mayo -

As I wasn't following any recipe in particular there isn't many measurements I can give you to try this at home - but as there are only two ingredients it shouldn't be too hard to work out. Everyone has their own opinions of how much Vegemite to use anyway, so my recipe is basically "mix to personal taste".

I started with a liberal squirt of mayo, probably between a quarter and a half of the bottle. On top of that I spooned about two teaspoons of vegemite, grabbed a whisk and started stirring.

Now you've gotta be prepared to put some elbow grease into it - the consistency of Vegemite doesn't really lend itself to being mixed so you've got to force it, I found using a fork to mush out the lumps worked quite well.

After several minutes of mixing I had something that looked like this -

A quick taste-test told me that it was a little too mayonaisse-ey and (although the flavour was starting to come through) not quite Vegemite-ey enough, I doubled up and put another two teaspoons of Vegemite in the mix and kept on stirring. Another taste test in a few minutes, it was closer but still not quite there, so I put in a fifth teaspoon and mixed it up.

After smoothing out the lumps and furiously mixing for another few minutes it looked about done, I put it into a serving bowl and chucked it in the fridge while the chips finished cooking...

Damn that looks pretty, doesn't it?

While waiting for the chips I stuck my pinky in and had a taste ... It was good. It was the first time in this whole process I let myself think that this one might actually be a success. The oven chips were done and I served up the whole shebang...

Now those oven chips, to me, look undercooked, so no need in pointing that out, but as some of the smaller ones were starting to burn without turning golden brown, I think that is just the colour that they are supposed to be.

I picked up a chip. My hands were shaking. I dipped...

And it was good.

IT'S GOOD!

It really tasted exactly how you would imagine it, liking coating a hot chip in runny Vegemite. My one complaint would be that I took the easy way out and didn't make the aioli from scratch - the strong vinegar taste from the mayo definitely came through and interfered with the Vegemite taste a little - next time I would definitely make it from scratch, omitting the vinegar.

EDIT: I've been told from a few people since posting this that I should've used whole-egg mayonnaise, that would have solved the vinegar taste issue - keep it in mind when making your own!

After the failure of the pork rind parma I was terrified that I'd have another failed invention on my hands, and it pleases me to no end that this one was good (at least in my opinion, you guys might hate it).

So there you have it! Take some mayo, mix Vegemite to personal taste and you've got yourself a tasty little chip-dip.

So if you want to Aussie-fy your next bowl of chips, perhaps make a surprising treat for your next Australia Day party then give Vegemite Aioli a try (or as a mate of mine dubbed it "Vaioli"). I recommend trying it the easy way first, just to see if its your cup of tea, then if you're a fan give making it from scratch a go, it'll definitely put a rose in your cheeks.

Cooking with Parma Daze #3 - 'Cooking Parmas for the Lazy Man'

After we threw in the napkins on last week's Mega Parma Challenge, sitting around the table moaning and clutching our stomachs, the topic of where we were heading the following week came up. Now bear in mind we had just eaten the majority of this...

So at the time the idea of eating any more chicken - no matter how far in the future it may be, turned our stomachs.

It was decided amongst the table that we were gonna take a week off, to digest, collect ourselves, have a little cry and ponder what decisions we made in our lives that culminated in us attempting to eat 1.5 kilos of chicken. We parted ways and left it at that.

Fast forward to this week - The first Thursday I have had off (while being in Melbourne) for quite some time. I felt lost ... The mega parma was well and truly digested and I was getting that familiar hankering, yet I brushed it aside and headed to my local butcher in North Essendon - Famous for their Chicken Kievs. If I couldn't indulge in my favourite crumbed chicken dish I was swapping it out for my 2nd favourite ... Who doesn't love a good Kiev? Nothing beats the feeling of putting a knife through a freshly cooked kiev and unleashing a river of molten garlic butter through your chips (or rice, or mashed potatoes. Everything goes with Kiev)... I bet you're thinking about having a kiev right now.

As I said, the local butchers, or "North Essendon Gourmet Butchery" has got a bit of a name in the area as the best place to go for your meat. Be it some rissoles for the barbie, a slab of succulent roast pork or the aforementioned chicken kiev - 1083 Mount Alexander Rd is the place to be.

I finished work for the day and stopped off in the shopping strip to grab the kievs, when walking into the butchers a sign on the glass caught my eye...

It was fate. Even when I actively tried to avoid having a parma on a Thursday, the parma found me. It was like "Final Destination" but with pieces of schnitzel.

Well this definitely threw a spanner in the works! I could almost taste the garlic butter on my tongue, yet how could I turn down the promise of an oven ready parma? On parma night no less! I put the kievs on hold and got a parma instead (the last one left, The wife still got her kiev, so she was happy). This unexpected parmage was going to be interesting, thats for sure. We've had Microwave parmas before, we've had take away parmas before, we've even had Lite n' Easy parmas before - But never have we done a raw, oven ready parma from a butcher ... this was unknown territory.

Now at this point it was half past five, I had resigned myself to doing no more cooking than putting the kievs in the oven - maybe boiling some rice. But thats no way to treat a parma, a parma needs sides! Yet... It was 5:30, I was nearly home and was feeling incredibly lazy. Then inspiration struck. The parma is oven ready, why not try to put together a proper parma with only oven ready (or pre-packaged) ingredients? After a quick stop at Coles I was good to go. It was a very close call, but like a phoenix from the ashes parma night had been resurrected!

I got home and had a look at the package the butcher had bagged up -

For perspective that is a large foil tray, if you've ever ordered a parma from your local pizza shop you'd know what size we're talking about. Pretty sizable, and for a moment I thought it might be complete with sides as the container seemed rather heavy. I opened up the box and...

No sides! But still a pretty big parma, much bigger than I thought, although (from what I could see) I was a little concerned about the thickness of the schnitz, it was kindve hard to tell through the napoli and cheese if the foundation was any good. I preheated the oven and set the parma aside.

Now, as for the salad, I went for this...

I considered going all out and getting some coleslaw as well, but after spending $5 on the salad, the cost of the sides with coleslaw would have been more than I paid for the parma. This seemed good enough, I love when I'm at a pub and they put cheese through the salad - so surely this would do the trick.

The oven was pre-heated, I slid the parma in and we were good to go.

Now we play the waiting game.

While we wait, how about a riddle?

A man lives on the twelfth floor of an apartment building. Every morning he takes the elevator down to the lobby and leaves the building. In the evening, he gets into the elevator, and, if there is someone else in the elevator -- or if it was raining that day -- he goes back to his floor directly. Otherwise, he goes to the tenth floor and walks up two flights of stairs to his apartment... Why?

I always loved these lateral thinking puzzles as a kid. I had a book of them and used to relentlessly annoy people around me by constantly quizzing them. I guess I haven't grown out of that yet.

Anyway, give up? The guy is short, he can only reach to the button for number 10, but if there's someone in the elevator with him to ask, or he has his umbrella to push the button, he can reach his floor directly.

Oh look, The parma is done...

Not. too. shabby!

I went with potato gems as an alternative to chips, just for something a bit different! Although the entire time I was preparing them I was thinking to myself "Napoleon, Gimme some of your tots"

I cracked a beer, sat down and tucked in, The schnitz was thicker than I expected, not massively thick, but definitely nothing to complain about. There wasn't any ham, which was a bit of a disappointment, but there was plenty of cheese and napoli to make up for it. The chicken quality was top notch - I was a little worried that they would use the cover of toppings to hide their crappier cuts of chicken as some butchers do, yet this was pure white chicken breast all the way through.

The crumbs were heavily herbed and added a great flavour to the dish (they clearly used the same crumbs that they use on their kievs, as this parma reminded me a lot of a flat kiev covered in napoli and cheese ... although doesn't that sound delicious?)

Yet the crumbs are where we get to this parma's major problem - there were just too many of them. The parma was thick enough, we have had parmas at pubs where the parma was half the thickness of this one, yet the oven ready parma was just so thick with crumbs that it was pretty much all you could taste, the texture of all that crumb overpowered the meal quite a bit.

Other than that its pretty hard to find fault, we have had much, much worse parmas at pubs, for a heftier price tag at that.

The potato gems actually served their purpose well, They went perfectly with the chicken and were a refreshing change - If I went to a pub and they served the parma with a side of tots instead of chips I'd be more than happy.

The salad wasn't fantastic, as expected for a salad from a supermarket fridge. Although the fact that my pile of salad was 40% cheese definitely helped it out a lot, Like I said with the parma - we've had worse.

Now a new feature to Parma Daze reviews - the Pros and Cons list!

[pros]

• Great quality chicken
• Potato Gems go surprisingly well with a parma
• Plenty of toppings, no nude schnitz in sight
• A damn good parma for $7.95

[/pros][cons]

• Too much crumbing, overpowered the dish.
• A slice of ham would have helped

[/cons]

Out of all the take-away,  microwave, or home-cooked parmas we've had, this was by far the best - If you're after a hassle free parma in the comfort of your own home it definitely can't be beat, and for $7.95 its fantastic value (although I spent extra on the sides, so the final price depends on what you want with it). If you live in the Essendon area I recommend giving it a go.

Be aware the oven-ready parmas are only as permanent as the sheet of butcher paper on the window, so no promises that it'll still be there when you arrive - but if we all go and buy them maybe they'll become a regular part of the selection, the fact that I got there at 5:30 and it was the last one left bodes well for their success, I think word must be getting around.

If its a rainy night and all you want to do is stay in, watch the footy finals and maybe impress your significant other with your cooking skills without actually doing anything, then it's definitely worth a try, I'm calling the Pre-packaged parma experiment a success.

And if you want to start kievdaze.com let me know.

Oh one more thing - We now have merch available! A whole range of parma related shirts for your purchasing pleasure, click here to get to our merch section, or click the button up the top. Enjoy!

Cooking with Parma Daze #2 - 'The pork rind experiment'

Hello Hello!

This post was supposed to go up much earlier on the weekend, but things happened that prevented it (mostly me being far too sick to consider writing words).

A few weeks back I was struck with a revelation. Pigs are delicious, chicken parmas are delicious. So how could we combine these magical delights past the simple slice of ham or bacon?

Pork rinds.

I put it out on the social networks to see what kind of response it would get -

Well that was that, I had to give it a try. I was struck down with a sore throat come Wednesday and by the time Thursday had rolled around I was well on the way to being sick - not as bad as I would get later in the weekend, but enough that the CBF’s majorly kicked in and I pushed our scheduled attempt at The Wharf Hotel another week.

I Headed to LaManna and loaded up on supplied for what had been dubbed “The pork rind experiment”

Chicken, ham, cheese, eggs (for crumbing) Leggo’s Napoli, some beer battered chips, nandos perinaise for chip-dippage and a bottle of Tabasco to give the napoli a bit of a kick.

Then there was the star of the day … The pork rinds -

Now I took a lot of pictures of the cooking process, so from here on until the finished product there will probably be more photos than words. Enjoy!

First of all I put the pork rinds in the blender, I wanted them to have a slightly rough texture so I made sure to only use the occasional “pulse” setting to give them a gentle crushing, but not reduce them to pork-paste.

The finished product. It smelled like pork. Pork and salt. But mostly pork

Next up I took out the mallet and went “fifty shades of grey” all over the chicken breast. I’m not a big fan of overly-pounded chicken, so after a few whacks it used the safe-word (“Rasputin” for the curious) and she was ready for the crumbing.

A dip in the egg then into the rind

Voila! Pork rind crumbed chicken schnitzel. at this stage I was optimistic. Doesn’t it look good!

Covered the tray in foil and put her in the oven for 20 minutes, then uncovered for another 20. While I waited I got the chips ready, dosed them with a healthy whack of chicken salt and slid them in alongside the schnitz.

The toppings were watching, ready to go…

And after 40 minutes in the oven, the schnitz was done!

Time for the toppings, all loaded up and ready to go back into the hot box.

After a few minutes she was done!

Once she came out of the oven I assembled the parma on the plate with the chips (which I did manage to overcook slightly, but nothing terrible) Got my chip dip ready, cracked a beer and prepared to tuck in.

IT’S ALIVE!!!

I picked up the knife and fork, steadied them in my hands, I could feel my heart pounding as I slowly lowered them to the plate. I pierced the schnitzel with the fork as I brought the sharp knife down to the chicken, tearing through the flesh until I heard the clink  of metal on ceramic.

I lifted the fork, I could feel the added weight of the portion I had cut. As I lifted the chicken the scent of roast pork filled my nostrils. I couldn’t handle it any further. I closed my eyes and ate…

And it was fucking dreadful.

It’s hard to explain just how bad it was without being there to try it. But imagine buying a lemon gelato on a hot summers day, you bring the lemon gelato to your lips but when you bite into it instead of tasting lemon gelato it tastes like BBQ pork ribs.

Now I’m sure those pork ribs are delicious, but when the brain is expecting one thing and gets another it throws it out of whack.  The meal smelled very strongly of roast pork, yet it tasted like chicken parma, and on the travel from plate to mouth my brain got the signal loud and clear that “I’m getting roast pork, yum, I love roast po…OMGWTF WHY AM I EATING PARMA?!”

And the brain confusion wasn’t the only problem, the texture was terrible, I was expecting more of a ‘crunch’ to the crumbs but once they hit the parma they were extremely fluffy, it just didn’t work, as if the parma was covered in a very thin layer of salty marshmallows.

It seems odd to spend an entire post devoted to showing you how to cook something that I’m telling you is absolutely terrible, but thems the breaks.

Hope everyone had a great cup weekend, we’ll be visiting The Wharf Hotel this week, details up Friday (for real this time).

Next week - Parma crumbed in prawn crackers!*

The search continues…

*not really.

Cooking with Parma Daze - 'Southern Style Parma'

Well this is something different! how exciting.

First things first a Happy New Year to everyone reading (if you aren’t reading you can fuck right off), I hope 2012 brings us all sorts of happiness and some truly tasty parmas - and not the end of the world, asshole Mayans.

Now we will be returning to our regularly scheduled programming next week, We will be hitting a pub next Thursday (the 19th) and a few of us even managed to sneak in a parma on New Years Day in Hepburn, more info on that little gem when I get around to it. In the meantime, you get to see photos of my kitchen … fun!

A few months ago a fellow blogger and twitterer known as @_BeerSnob_ Posted a recipe for a ‘Southern Style Chicken Parma’ on his website (check it out for the full recipe as i’ll only be posting snippets here) It intrigued me, and I have been meaning to whip it up since I read it - Well last night I had an opening in my dinner calendar, between Monday night’s Hamburger from the Airport West fish & chip shop and Wednesdays tasting of the meals that will be served at my wedding, Tuesday became an impromptu parma night. I headed to LaManna, loaded up the spices and started MKR - Parma edition.

Now I will warn you there are gonna be a lot of pictures from this point on, and I’m not sure if I’m gonna have much to say in between, but we’ll see how it goes - I have deviated a little from Beer Snob’s recipe in a couple of places, I’ll point em out as we go.

Lets start with the crumbing, in one bowl I beat an egg & added some milk, in the other a decent splash of cornflake crumbs, and in the third there was a plethora of spices - check the recipe for actual amounts but in the end I had something that looked a little like this…

The spices in that second bowl are salt, oregano, garlic powder, thyme, ground ginger, basil, Celery salt, black pepper, dry mustard and a shit load of paprika.

Now on to the star of the show, The original recipe calls for chicken thigh but, as the ladies know, I’m all about the breasts.

Personally I’m not huge on butterflied chicken breasts, so rather than play surgeon I played masochist - covered the chicken breast in a healthy layer of glad wrap and let loose with the rolling pin, after a vigorous spanking I had achieved optimal thickness

I gave the breast a good soaking in the milk (Think Carmen Electra in that scene from ‘The Raven’ - you know the one) Then into the spices - I wasn’t quite sure of the order put forth in the recipe so I went a little off book, giving it a covering in the spices, then back to the egg/milk mixture for adhesion, then into the crumbs for its final coating. chucked it on a greased up oven tray, posed it for a quick photo…

Covered the tray in foil and popped it into the preheated oven. The recipe calls for 30 mins of covered cooking then 20 mins uncovered, while I waited I prepared the side dish…

Good ol’ McCain oven fries - I find the original ones are the best from the bag, oiled up a tray, sprinkled with a liberal dose of chicken salt and slid it in alongside the parma.

Then it was time to wait…

After de-foiling at the 30 min mark and putting her back in for an extra 20 it was time for the toppings

I wasn’t quite sure what brand of everything to get, so I got the first ham that I saw, the cheese had a parma on the bag so that was a no-brainer and the leggos sauce also had Parmigiana on it. Easy done.

I went with the SHNC topping system, starting with the schnitz, then ham, then napoli and cheese on top - I was very liberal with the toppings and wound up with this delicious looking monstrosity…

Fired up the grill function of the oven (quite possibly the first time its ever been used) and chucked her back in.

I killed some time watching youtube videos for 5 minutes and re-approached the oven. Things were looking good except it seemed that the cheese and the napoli had a big fight, and the napoli told the cheese to get out - why can’t they all just get along?

I took a photo, the blast of heat from the oven fogged up the lens, but you get the idea

Not to worry, there was still plenty of cheese still left on the chicken

All that was left to do was to plate it up…

tadaa! No salad, CBF making salad.

The recipe calls for an accompanying IPA, but all I had was Bulmers or some Blueberry Cruisers left over from a NYE party. Bulmers won.

As for taste - Not too shabby if I do say so myself! the coating of spices definitely makes it different but well worth a try, Next time I make it (I will, as I bought a fuck-ton of spices) I don’t think i’ll keep it in the oven for quite as long, maybe 20 mins covered and 20 uncovered.

So if the wife is bugging you with “why don’t you cook dinner for once” chuck one of these babies in front of her and you’re sure to get laid. Guaranteed*.

Well I hope you have enjoyed this little deviation from the norm! Massive thanks to Beer Snob for his recipe!

If you give this parma a go, or have any ideas on how to improve it, send us a pic of your creation on either the Facebook or Twitter! I’d be excited to see other attempts

As I said at the beginning we will be back in force for 2012 starting next week. Catch you then!

The search continues…

*Not a guarantee, although its pretty likely, you’ll at least get a wristie out of it