Chicken Parm - Blase Biello - Q1 BM

Chicken Parmigiana w/ Spaghetti in a Marinara Sauce


Time: About 1 hour                                           Chicken-Parmigiana-420x279

This is a dish that has been in my family for years and years. A truly Italian meal. -Blase

Ingredients: 
3 eggs
Fresh Romano/Parmesan cheese
Bread Crumbs - Italian Style
Chicken Breasts *
Canola/Vegetable oil (enough to fill pan 1/4 inch)
1 bottle of Pasta Sauce *
1 box of spaghetti *
Slices of mozzarella (or any cheese) *

*These quantities depend on how much you'd like to make. 

 

PREPARATION
1. Defrost the chicken breasts if frozen.

2. Crack 3 eggs into a bowl and stir until eggs are beaten. 

3. Pour a mixture of bread crumbs and romano/parmesan cheese onto another plate, a good amount. You can always pour more bread crumbs. 

4. Put the chicken breast in the egg, fully submerged. Leave it in for a couple seconds.
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5. Put the chicken breast on the bread crumbs and flip until it is covered with bread crumbs. 

6. Set aside and finish all the pieces of chicken. 
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COOKING
1. Heat 1/4 inch of canola oil in a pan/skillet on Medium-Low heat. 
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2. Before it is at a boil place the breaded chicken breasts in the pan. Not to many though, you don't want over-crowding. 

3. Let the chicken cook for at least 3 minutes on each side. Or until the side is golden brown. 
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4. Place the cooked chicken onto a paper towel and let dry. 
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MORE PREPARATION
1. After the chicken 'cutlets' have dried coat them with tomato sauce. 
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2. Place slices of mozzarella cheese on top. 
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BAKING

1. Preheat oven on 400º F for a couple minutes

2. Put in the pieces of chicken and keep in the oven until the cheese has melted. 
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3. Remove from oven and let cool. 

SPAGHETTI 
1. Bring a pot of water to a boil.
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2. Put in fresh/boxed spaghetti and cook until spaghetti is soft - NOT TO SOFT. 
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3. Strain the spaghetti and pour on your sauce. 

4. Enjoy the chicken parmigiana and spaghetti. 
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Analysis 

I made Chicken Parmigiana with Spaghetti in Marinara Sauce, which took a total of 8 ingredients to make. A little over 60% of the meal is fresh whole food. While the other 40% is processed. However, even though the food is processed; it is not meat it is only the bread crumbs, canola oil, and marinara sauce - which are all fairly healthy. For every 2 pieces of chicken parmigiana there is a little over 500 calories and about 18 grams of fat. The body has a slightly difficult time processing any form of meat/poultry, so eat light. I'd definitely say eating chicken parmigiana every day would be very dangerous to someone's health because of the amount of cheese and fat that comes from the cooking process. The eggs that I used were from New Jersey as well as the chicken. The fresh cheese was made in Pennsylvania. The bread crumbs I used were actually from the same city as the eggs, Vineland, NJ - that's where the Progresso Quality Food plant is located. The fresh spaghetti was made in South Philadelphia. The farthese traveling ingredient was the pasta sauce, which was made by Barilla- who's plant is located in Avon, New York. In my opinion, these ingredients barely traveled any distance at all, and I consider this a "home cooked meal". Especially, that you can make the sauce yourself. When I bought all of the ingredients for this meal, it cost be a little over $20. This is more than you would pay for fast food BUT I was able to make 10 pieces of hefty chicken and 2 pounds of spaghetti, clearly showing which was more valuable. Both small and big companies made money off of my ingredient purchases including a small farm in Vineland, and a large company in Vineland, as well as other companies. In my opinion, there are little to no social ramifications of this meal, except maybe the usage of chicken. Most people do not like the way chicken is handled in the US, including myself, but this was not Tyson or any other huge company, it was a small farm in NJ. All of the ingredients of the dish were bought at the supermarket, ACME. With the eggs, simply buying fresh eggs at the store, is more efficient than having your own hens to lay the eggs in your Philadelphia backyard. Buying premade pasta sauce, in my family's eyes is definitely not the way to go. Making the pasta sauce at home, with a plethora of ingredients makes the sauce better and more customizable. Overall, this was a really successful dish, and one of my favorites, and I can definitely consider my chicken parmigiana with spaghetti in marinara sauce an affordable, home cooked meal yielding huge portions. 

Reflection

Regular Americans do not play a huge role in the larger food system. Actually, in my opinion, they play little to no role at all because bigger corporations within the food system like to do whatever they want, whenever they want, however they want. Behind every piece of food, whether it be a fruit, vegetable, swine, beef, processed food, etc. There’s always a corporation behind it reaping benefits somehow. A lot of the practices that these companies do, goes unnoticed to the everyday American, because a lot of the practices are kept from non-workers’ eyes. Any footage that you’ve come to see from within a slaughterhouse “kill floor” or anything like that is all essentially ‘spy-footage’. These corporations like to keep the door shut to outsiders, leaving Americans to play a very small role in their own larger food system. 

I believe some of the biggest problems with our food system are corruption, ignorance, and sanitation. For example, with corruption, many of the corporations know that what they are doing is no good for people, animals, or the environment but they continue to do it regardless. Also, many of the big food corporations’ Presidents and CEO’s have spots on the FDA and other government positions. Even though, they continue to keep a blind eye to all the unsafe and unsanitary conditions that are present. With ignorance, there is a huge problem here. Many of the Americans have no idea what is in their food or how their food is processed. In fact, I think over half of the Americans would actually take at least one thing out of their diet if they got a look at behind the scenes of America’s food system. Ignorance like this can be combatted through learning through various pieces of media. Including the film we watched in class, Food Inc. Finally, sanitation. After watching Food Inc. I’ve seen some of the nastiest living conditions of our burgers, hotdogs, and chicken wings that I think could ever be possible. Cows and pigs living in their own manure, and chickens living in a dark room - keeling over from their own unhealthy weight. Everything is unsanitary and the FDA needs to do some major regulation. 

There are many changes that I could personally make to my diet to make my overall quality of life substantially higher. My dad is a vegetarian and doesn’t eat any meat. The proteins that you can get from eating meats, he gets through vitamins and other things like peanut butter, fish, etc. However, this is not a step I’d be willing to take. I love meat and I couldn’t imagine not eating it. In fact, I tried to stop eating meat for a week and failed. But, there is a solution. Go organic. The organic companies feed their cows grass and actually let them walk around in a grassy field, making the overall beef from the cows healthier, cleaner, and overall better. The impact of going organic would definitely make me feel better by cutting out unnecessary hormones, preservatives, and random bacteria would substantially make my health better. In fact, I’ve tried a pack of organic hamburgers and their meat is so much better than regular burgers, honestly! 

At the end of the day, I’ve learned so much about America’s food system and the many shady sides to it. Through educational documentaries about the food system and foods, I was able to make myself aware to all the dangers that are out there when eating processed foods and various forms of meats. Converting over to organic meats is definitely one of my main goals because that’s clean meat that wont do nearly as much harm to your body that regular slaughterhouse meat can. I’ve learned the tiny place that we, Americans, have in our food system, and I took the first step to a better lifestyle, which was educating myself and making changes accordingly. 

Food Rules Slide
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In my family, as Italians.. I always had salad after my meal regardless of what we ate. Italians believe that the salad aids in digestion and is refreshing to eat after pasta/meat/etc. It seems wrong to have salad as an appetizer in my family. 

http://bit.ly/sTSZcF - calorie info. 

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