I was excited about this one. My experience with GoodFood was good and I was expecting this one to be the same. I had never tried Chicken Parm (making or eating), and it was kind of an adventure for me. Of course, I have been to restaurants that make it, it was just one of those things I wasn't sure I would like so I never wanted to waste money trying it at a restaurant. Also, it is kind of embarrassing when you don't like something at a restaurant, they tend to take it personally. Now that I tried it, I think I have a few changes that would make the recipe better, it wasn't bad but I think the instructions could have been a bit better. I made this recipe on November 5th, 2019.
I am going to start by saying, I don't normally complain when a subscription box sens me such large Chicken Breast. To be honest, I thought the portion sizes would be small. But these Chicken Breasts were HUGE! When I think of Chicken Parm (from what I have seen on cooking shows or at restaurants), I think of a flattened out Chicken Breast, whether it be banged out to be flat or just butterflied that way. I think that would have helped here. (Even if you don't want to do that, just cutting the Breast up into strips probably would work better also, in my opinion.) Something else that I think would help this Chicken along would be some spices. The instructions said to simply bread it like you normally would (mayo and panko) and that's a little bland. Some Italian Seasoning would be nice also adding the cheese now would be a nice touch (not too much just to add to the breadcrumbs - keeping in mind you want breadcrumbs with cheese not cheese with breadcrumbs).
Once the Breast is prepared you want to pan-fry it until it is golden brown. They looked delicious when they came out of the pan. I almost didn't want to put the sauce on it. And I should have listened to my instincts. The next instruction was to cover in sauce and top with cheese. Unfortunately, this made the chicken and the breading just really soggy and it wasn't the greatest. Again, I think just baking the cheese on after pan-frying it would be a nice alternative. And then serving it either on top of the sauce or on top of a bed of sauced pasta would be a world of difference.
The salad also was not the greatest. It did have Italian Seasoning for the vegetables, which probably would have been better used elsewhere. The salad didn't really go well with the Chicken. To be honest, I didn't really want to put them on the same plate because I didn't want them to mix. I also didn't enjoy that the vegetables were warm and the spinach was room temperature. It just didn't feel like it worked together. The salad dressing was okay. It called for sugar (which you have to have on hand - and I didn't), and I wasn't a real fan of that. I think Honey would have been a nice alternative to sugar and probably healthier too. And it would have worked with this salad (not the Chicken, but in my opinion this salad didn't work with the Chicken anyways).
I am going to retry this recipe one day with the changes I made. So stay tuned for that and see if I can make it better than the original!
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