At family gatherings we’d sometimes play the fantasy food game of What Three Foods Would You Eat On A Desert Island. Basically you could select only three things that you’d have to eat for the rest of your life– a what could you eat forever and not get sick of game (calories and health concerns didn’t count). The majority of my clan picked chicken parm as our desert island favorite. My other two personal picks were hot fudge brownies and cheeseburgers with fries. My Mom picked a total dessert island with three desserts instead of main dishes– no surprise there! (You should play too. We always have fun.)
My current policy is
Do No Parm, meaning it’s better to order in and keep our neighborhood faves in business than to do it yourself.
The sauce has to simmer for hours and needs a good babysitter to watch it bubble and swirl. The oven has to be juuust the right temperature to melt the cheese, bringing the whole shebang together.
Although chicken parm is one of my very favorite dishes to eat, it’s one of my least favorite to make. The chicken needs to be perfectly crispy and the spatter it causes in the kitchen is usually epic.
So I was impressed to learn that my good friend Jim Occhiogrosso took on the at home parm challenge. Yes, Jim is an amazing cook, and yes, he can make any Italian dish look easy, but he really outdid himself on this one. Missing Stella, the restaurant within Macy’s in Herald Square, Jim decided to remake their famous eggplant parm at home. He thinly sliced a few aubergine ovals and avoided the fryer altogether by instead using a copper grill sheet right onto his outdoor barbeque. He didn’t even make his gravy from scratch (Jim!!) but his cheese was direct from Arthur Avenue (ok, ok, redemption).
You can see that his results were just stunning. And tasty too I’ve heard– although I didn’t sample the fabulous parm personally. But once this pandemic is over, I’ve been promised a taste by the chef himself.
jenslittleblackbook.com 