Today, one of NYC’s best Italian chefs, Angie Rito, demonstrates how she cooks the perfect chicken parmesan. As co-founder of Don Angie and San Sabino, Rito has mastered the art of Italian fine dining, but even top chefs still love the classic dishes easily made at home.Learn more about chef Angie Rito's chicken parm dos and don't here
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00:00Hi, I'm Angie Rito.
00:03I'm chef partner at Don Angie and San Savino.
00:06Today, I'm making my perfect version of chicken parm.
00:09My husband and I opened Don Angie seven years ago.
00:15It's our play on Italian-American red sauce joint.
00:18To me, a perfect chicken parm is all about the balance of textures and flavors.
00:22I think it's really important to have a nice crispy crust on the chicken.
00:26There should be some meltiness from the cheese.
00:28And to use really high-quality tomatoes for your sauce,
00:31first off, we're going to start with the chicken.
00:35We're starting with a high-quality chicken breast here.
00:38When you're shopping around, I think the smaller chicken breasts are ideal.
00:41The bigger the breast is, the larger the fibers and the muscles are.
00:44So I'm going to go ahead and cut this at a bias.
00:48And you can see it kind of naturally has a shape
00:50where it's a little thicker over here, a little thinner over here.
00:53So the way that I'm cutting these diagonally,
00:55I'm just trying to achieve a natural uniform shape
00:59because when I fry them in the pan, they're just going to cook more evenly
01:02if the chicken itself is like a uniform thickness all the way across.
01:07A very helpful tool is to use a Ziploc bag to pound these.
01:13It's really important to create some sort of barrier
01:15between your mallet and your chicken.
01:17Otherwise, it'll be kind of like a sticky mess.
01:20So the chicken will stick to your cutting board.
01:21It'll stick to your mallet.
01:23Start from the middle with the mallet
01:25and then gently move outward.
01:26If I were to start from the ends, I would just kind of, like,
01:29totally pulverize and destroy the ends there.
01:33A very small frying pan would work well for this.
01:36Even a pot would work.
01:37So this process also really tenderizes the chicken.
01:40You're kind of, like, gently breaking up all the muscle fibers in the meat.
01:43If you just simply cut it thin and don't pound it,
01:47you can really yield very dry end result.
01:50Season these a little bit in advance.
01:51Give the chicken a moment to take in the seasoning,
01:54release a little bit of its natural moisture,
01:56which, when I go ahead and dredge it,
01:58it's gonna help with the dredging process.
02:00I'm just gonna put these in the fridge really quick.
02:04We have a lowboy here on our chef's pass.
02:06Very convenient.
02:07And then we're gonna go ahead and make our sauce.
02:13This is a very simple tomato sauce.
02:15Not many ingredients in it.
02:16I love, like, an eight-hour, you know, Sunday gravy kind of thing.
02:20But for this particular preparation,
02:21we really want something that's, like, the total opposite.
02:24San Marzano DOP tomatoes are grown in this tiny little area
02:28outside of Naples near Mount Vesuvius.
02:30It's, like, a combination of the volcanic soil from Mount Vesuvius
02:34and kind of the proximity to the sea
02:36that really combines to create this ideal soil
02:39for producing the best produce.
02:40If you're just in the regular grocery store,
02:42regular San Marzano is a just-fine substitute.
02:45We're just being, like, very particular here.
02:47They just have, like, a really intense, concentrated tomato flavor.
02:51There's, like, an earthiness to them and just, in my opinion,
02:53like, a perfect balance of sweetness, acidity, and umami.
02:57So I'm just gonna crush them with my hands.
02:59We prefer to do this rather than put it in a food processor or something.
03:02You kind of get rustic, organic chunks of tomato throughout the sauce,
03:06which are really nice texturally.
03:08So next, I'm preparing the garlic for this sauce.
03:11For this particular recipe, we're going with something
03:14that has, like, a subtle and delicate garlic flavor.
03:16I'm leaving the papers intact on there.
03:19It's gonna protect the garlic as I cook it in the oil.
03:22However, I am going to go ahead and just kind of pound them gently.
03:25Just kind of in there to infuse their flavor, and then we remove them.
03:29We're gonna start our tomato sauce with some olive oil,
03:32and I'm gonna add my garlic.
03:34It's always nice to add salt early on in the process
03:37because it kind of helps pull the moisture out of the garlic
03:41and start the cooking process along.
03:43Usually wait till the garlic's getting a little bit golden
03:45before we add the chili flakes.
03:47Otherwise, the chili flakes might burn.
03:49I'm gonna go ahead and add the tomatoes.
03:53Add some fresh basil.
03:56Smell of basil always reminds me of my grandma.
03:59She used a whole bunch of basil.
04:01Again, this is super rustic. I'm just, like, throwing these in here.
04:03Much like the garlic, I'm gonna take it out at the end.
04:06So at this point, you can kind of season it to your liking.
04:09I'm just gonna add a little bit of salt,
04:12and then I'm gonna add, like, a little pinch of sugar.
04:14Again, like, you don't want this to be sweet
04:16by any stretch of the imagination.
04:17It has a lot of natural acidity to it,
04:19so I'm just adding a little sugar
04:21to kind of balance out the overall flavor of it.
04:24You can let this basil steep for, like, you know, up to 30 minutes.
04:28It still has some residual heat in there,
04:30so it's kind of, like, slowly cooking,
04:32but I don't actively have the burner on it or anything like that.
04:35Now we're gonna move on to breading our chicken.
04:40In the restaurant, we make our own seasoned breadcrumb mix.
04:43You could totally buy, like, a premixed one at the store.
04:47That's fine, too. We just prefer to mix our own.
04:50It's like something my grandma did.
04:51If you have old, stale bread,
04:53chop it up and put it in, like, a very low oven.
04:55We put it in the food processor, and then we sift it, as well,
04:58to, like, really yield this, like, super, super fine result.
05:01We just feel like it, like, yields, like, a crispier end result.
05:04I'm gonna add in some potato starch.
05:06A really unique ingredient can help you make, like,
05:09really crispy crusts on something like a breaded fried chicken.
05:13Helps retain moisture in certain baked goods.
05:16I'm gonna add a little bit of salt.
05:19We like to use granulated onion and garlic.
05:21Has that same coarse texture as the breadcrumbs.
05:25This is thyme, dried thyme.
05:27We dehydrated that ourselves.
05:29The stuff you buy in the store, you don't know how old it is.
05:32The quality and flavor of those things do diminish over time.
05:35By dehydrating the herbs in-house,
05:37we concentrate the flavor of the herbs,
05:40and then we kind of use them right away.
05:42You could dry herbs if you want in, like, a super, super low oven,
05:46or even in the sun, like my grandma used to.
05:49Alternatively, if you don't want to go through all that trouble,
05:52you just want to make sure you're getting very high-quality dried herbs.
05:55And then something we really like to add to our breading is tomato powder.
06:00You can also totally omit this.
06:01It's not necessary.
06:03We just feel like it layers in more of that tangy, umami tomato flavor
06:08in kind of an unexpected place in the recipe.
06:10It's actually, like, in the breading of the chicken,
06:12which we think is kind of cool.
06:14I'm going to add some cheese to this.
06:16So we like to use Pecorino Toscano.
06:19It's a little less salty and sharp than, like, a Pecorino Romano.
06:23Has, like, a little bit more of, like, a tangy, earthy flavor to it.
06:27And then Parmesan.
06:28We use 24-month Parmigiano-Reggiano.
06:31If you're using maybe, like, a lower-quality, like, pre-ground Parmesan,
06:34maybe just, like, add a little extra in there
06:36to get a little more of the Parmesan flavor.
06:39Because the 24-month Parm is really intense.
06:41I kind of like, you know, sh**y Parm, too.
06:44Like, I just, I like it all, you know?
06:45It's like...
06:47I'm going to go ahead and prepare the eggs for this.
06:49So, again, it might seem kind of crazy because, you know,
06:53we've seasoned the chicken and we've seasoned the breadcrumbs.
06:55But, you know, this egg, at the end of the day,
06:58is going to end up being its own kind of, like,
06:59little layer in the final result here.
07:01And we just want to ensure that every aspect of the dish
07:05has been seasoned thoroughly.
07:06Here, my dredging station.
07:08Just using some flour.
07:10Flour is just going to make the eggs stick,
07:12and the eggs are going to make the breading stick on there really well.
07:15I usually try to keep, like, a dry hand and a wet hand.
07:17Otherwise, you'll just kind of end up, like,
07:19breading your hands throughout this process.
07:22So, the goal of this whole process is to create sturdy, crispy layer
07:27to really hold up to the moisture from all the sauce and cheese
07:30we're going to throw on there.
07:32And this is my wet hand here.
07:34At this point, I'll take my dry hand
07:35and I create, like, a little dry handle for myself here.
07:38So that when I go ahead to flip it, in theory, mostly dry.
07:45So, now, my chicken is breaded,
07:47and I'm ready to go ahead and start frying it.
07:52We prefer to use a cast-iron pan for this.
07:54It really helps retain the heat in the oil,
07:57and it ensures an even temperature as you're pan-frying.
08:00So, we use a combination of vegetable oil as well as olive oil.
08:05Olive oil has a lower smoke point,
08:07but we still want to get the flavor of the olive oil,
08:10so we kind of mix it sort of half and half with, like, a neutral oil
08:14that's going to sustain a higher smoke point.
08:16Throw a little bit of my breading in there.
08:18You can see it's starting to sizzle,
08:20so that's, like, an indication that this is getting nice and hot.
08:25You always want to drop stuff in the pan kind of away from you
08:29so you're not splashing hot oil toward yourself.
08:32These outside areas here are actually slightly hotter
08:36than the very center,
08:38so I'm kind of strategically putting the chicken there.
08:44So, I finished cooking all my chicken,
08:46season it with a little bit of salt,
08:48and then I'm ready to assemble.
08:53So, I'm going to go ahead and layer a little bit of my tomato sauce.
08:56I'm using a stainless-steel platter for this.
08:59You can use, like, a baking dish or anything that's safe in an oven
09:02or, you know, can withstand heat.
09:04Yeah, this is a little more restaurant-y.
09:06This is actually, like, a little bit more traditional.
09:09I'm going to add a little bit of salt.
09:12Yeah, this is a little more restaurant-y.
09:14This is actually the way that we serve our shrimp parm here at San Sabino.
09:18I'm intentionally overlapping these just a tad but not too much
09:22because I want to make sure that the chicken is getting, like,
09:25equal coverage of all the cheese.
09:27Put a little bit more of the sauce on there.
09:30Again, just leaving some kind of blank pockets there of the crispy breading
09:35so it doesn't get drowned out with too much moisture.
09:37I'm going to use two types of mozzarella.
09:40I want to use your classic heart-skim, melty mozzarella
09:45just to get that, like, you know, cheese pull that everyone's looking for.
09:49We do prefer to use grated cheese for this.
09:51You have more kind of, like, surface area here for the cheese to melt in an even way,
09:56whereas if you use, like, a slice, for example,
09:58the outside would kind of, like, brown faster than the middle,
10:01kind of a more-is-more mentality here.
10:03Put another type of mozz here.
10:05These are chile ajine, which means cherries,
10:07so it's, like, a cherry-sized fresh mozzarella.
10:10Just to add a little bit more varied texture here,
10:13I'm just gently kind of, like, opening these up sort of, like, rustically,
10:16just kind of, like, scattering them.
10:18A little more of that pecorino and a little Parmesan, of course.
10:22By a little, I mean a lot.
10:24So at this point, we're ready to go into a broiler.
10:28It's technically called a cheese melter.
10:30Basically, you're just trying to apply super intense heat from one direction
10:35to kind of melt the cheese.
10:37Get a little additional browning on there, caramelization.
10:40If you're in an oven, you're just getting heat kind of, like, from all angles.
10:44But in a home oven, you can just use the broiler setting on your oven.
10:47Nice and bubbly. All the cheeses are nice and melted.
10:50We got some nice, like, pockets of browning on there, but not too brown.
10:54Looks really delicious.
10:55And final touches here.
10:57I'm going to put some fresh pepper...
11:01and some basil.
11:03It adds, like, a nice, herbaceous kind of freshness.
11:06Cut through all the richness here with all this cheese and sauce.
11:10And there we have it.
11:12Now for the best part. I get to enjoy it.
11:16The chicken's cooked perfectly inside.
11:18Get a little basil with that bite.
11:23Oh, yeah.
11:25Super tasty.
11:28So you can really taste all the layers of flavor in there.
11:30The chicken's perfectly seasoned in the interior, as well as the breading.
11:34There's little pops of acidity from the fresh tomatoes, kind of the chunks in the sauce there.
11:38And then I'm getting all the textures and flavors of all the various cheeses we added there.
11:42And it's delicious.
11:43This is totally worth doing at home.
11:45And again, you don't have to take all of the crazy steps that I outline here.
11:49It's just important to put a lot of love and care into every step.
11:52If you're looking for this recipe, you can find it in our cookbook, Italian American.
11:56To me, this really is my perfect plate of chicken parm.
12:00Italian American Chicken Parm