Chicken Parmesan

One of my favorite dishes is chicken parmesan. For this recipe I had a lot of influences. I like the crusted chicken romano at Cheescake Factory. A little of that is in my recipe.
I like the chicken parmesan at Buca di Beppo. A little of that is in my recipe.

Chicken Parmesan

Marinara

1 28 oz can whole peeled tomatoes
1/2 onion, very finely diced
3 strips bacon, fried
2 cloves garlic, pressed
fresh ground black pepper
sea salt to taste
a pinch each of basil, oregano, crushed red pepper
1/4 cup cream

Fry bacon in a sauce pan. Remove bacon from pan, leaving grease behind. Saute the onion and garlic in the grease. Meanwhile take the whole peeled potatoes and either crush them by hand or pulse them briefly in the blender, keeping them chunky. Add tomatoes to the onions and garlic. Crumble bacon, return to pot, cover, and simmer over low heat. After about 1/2 hour add the herbs, pepper and red pepper. Cover and simmer a little while longer. Taste the sauce. Adjust the saltiness with sea salt. Add 1/4 cup cream, stir and set aside.

Chicken

2 chicken breasts, cut in half the thinner way and pounded real thin
1 cup parmesan cheese
1 cup saltine crackers
2 T dried parsley
2 eggs
a few T milk

Cut the chicken breasts in half to make thin pieces. Pound extra thin with a meat hammer. Combine the egg with the milk and stir vigorously. In a food processor combine the crackers, cheese and parsley. Pulse until powdered.
Dip the chicken pieces in the egg, then the parmesan/cracker/parsley mix. After dredging in the mix set into a greased baking pan.

The baking

You will need a few pieces proscuitto
you will need a few slices of mozarella cheese


Bake the dredged chicken pieces at 425 in the oven until browning and starting to look like chicken parmesan. Remove from oven and set on a plate. Pour the marinara in the bottom of the baking dish and return the chicken pieces to the pan. Top each piece of chicken with a piece of proscuitto and return to oven until proscuitto is starting to look a little crispy like a piece of bacon. Next top each piece of chicken with a piece of cheese. Return to the oven until cheese melts. Finally turn the oven to broil. Put the chicken back under the broiler until the cheese starts to brown.
And plated it looks like this:
If you have any leftover proscuitto, just roll it up and stick it to a piece of cantelope with a toothpick.