Ex-Mob Boss cooks chicken Parmesan (Secret Franzese Family recipe)

➡ We’re in my kitchen, where I’m preparing a dish called chicken parmesan. Despite its name, it’s not from Italy but is an Italian American dish. Cooking brings back memories for me, and I enjoy sharing stories while I cook. The sauce for the chicken parmesan is simple, made with tomatoes, olive oil, and a whole onion for flavor without sweetness.
➡ The speaker shares his experiences with cooking and a funny story about a dispute over bad chickens. He emphasizes the importance of using organic food and shares a cooking tip: to make chicken juicy and not dry, it should be pounded thin. He also mentions his preference for his grandmother’s meatballs over restaurant ones, and how he’s noticed an improvement in restaurant food quality. Lastly, he begins to explain a cooking process involving flour, breadcrumbs, and eggs.
➡ The speaker shares personal memories while preparing a meal, reminiscing about his grandparents, their influence on his life, and his regret of not being there for them in their final years due to his imprisonment. He also talks about his grandfather’s love for his job as a bus driver and his other grandfather’s respect in the mob. The speaker also shares his love for cooking, wine, and the importance of spending time with loved ones.
➡ The speaker discusses their love for a special Armenian wine, noting its unique taste due to a new grape-squeezing process and its health benefits compared to American wines. They also share their cooking process for making crispy chicken cutlets with pasta, emphasizing the importance of using flour and maintaining the right oil temperature. The speaker also mentions their appreciation for California’s weather and their success in selling their wine at a retail outlet.
➡ The text is about making chicken parmesan with mozzarella cheese and serving it with spaghetti. The author also discusses pairing the dish with different types of wine, including red, white, and cherry, all of which he finds to complement the meal well. He also shares some cooking tips, like ensuring the oil is hot enough for frying and not overcooking the pasta. Lastly, he mentions the health benefits of European wines due to fewer additives.
➡ The speaker is promoting their successful wine business and sharing a recipe for an Italian dish, chicken cacciatore. They encourage using organic chicken and cooking pasta al dente for the best taste. They also offer a link to the recipe and a mob-themed apron for sale. The speaker ends by wishing everyone health and safety, promising more recipes for healthy eating, and looking forward to the next interaction.

This time we’re in my kitchen. It’s winter time here. Unfortunately, it was only 78 degrees today. This really reminds me of the old days. I’m not going get into that. Chicken parmesan you might think is from Italy and is very Italian, but it’s not. You ask for chicken parmesan in Italy, they’ll look at you like, what are you talking about? But I got to tell you this about my grandfather. Anytime there was a black player, he didn’t like the black. He wasn’t as good as Mickey Mantle. He wasn’t as good as Lou Gehrig. Willie Mays wasn’t as good as any of the white players, right? So I say, grandpa, you’re a racist.

Now we got to sit down with Paul Castellano over chickens. $700 worth of chickens. I’m telling you, just making this food is bringing all these stories and memories back for me. You good therapy sometimes to cook, I got to tell you that. All right, my friends, we’re back in the kitchen. This time we’re in my kitchen in my home, and I’m so comfortable here. We got a nice big kitchen, easy to prepare, everything wonderful. And today we’re going to do a special dish, and it’s called chicken parmesan. Is there anybody out there that doesn’t like chicken? You can prepare chicken so many different ways, as long as the chicken is moist and it’s not dry.

You know, in a restaurant, if something doesn’t come out exactly right, I’ll normally eat it. I know people try and they do their best, and sometimes the place is busy. It’s not exactly the way you want it. I’ll normally eat it, but with chicken, no, the chicken is dry. I’m sending it back. Can’t eat it. So today, as a matter of fact, I’m going to do a couple of these because there’s a couple of different ways to make chicken. Chicken cacciatore is very Italian. Chicken parmesan, you might think, is from Italy and is very Italian, but it’s not.

It’s actually Italian American. It’s an American Italian dish. Not in Italy. You ask for chicken parmesan in Italy, they’ll look at you like, what are you talking about? So I’m going to prepare that today. It’s very, very easy. Normally, when you have chicken parmesan, you have spaghetti with it. That’s just how we do it in our household. Obviously, you can have other side dishes with it, but spaghetti works well because you’re creating a sauce and Obviously, you know, we Italians, we love our spaghetti. You may be asking about this. As you can see, some of my favorite movie characters.

You got Armandesante. Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant. In the movie Gotti, I always say it’s my number one favorite mob movie, the 1996 HBO Gotti movie. Of course, you have Don Corleone and a few others by my brilliant artist friend Bowden. And so I’m in full character today, people. But we’re going to do this. The first thing I’m going to do is I’m going to make the sauce, and then, you know. You know, I really enjoy doing this because it kind of brings back memories. I don’t cook that much, you know, like I used to. When I first got married, I’d cook a little bit more because my wife was kind of learning her recipe.

She was young, but now she does the cooking. My. My daughter does the cooking. Whenever I get in the kitchen and I start to make dishes that we used to eat, you know, at home when I was growing up and with my family, it brings back some really good memories. So I want to share some of them with you today. You know, I want to talk about our wine, because like I said, for us, it was always meals and wine. They came together. You know, I can’t even think of the times I would go to a bar and order a glass of wine, usually a white wine spritzer, just to have something to drink.

But wine was always, you know, around family, around meals, around friends. I always thought of it that way. I’ve told this many times. My grandfather, in the kitchen, in the. I’m sorry, the basement, to his home in Brooklyn, he would make wine, serve it to us when we were 10, 11, 12 years old. It was crazy, you know, but we got a taste for it back then, and so it’s part of tradition. So, you know, as I’m cooking this, I might be telling some stories. If you can think of anything, put them in your comments. You know, we always enjoy that.

But first, let’s get to what we need to do first, and that’s to make the sauce very simple. You know, I like very simple sauces. I don’t like anything too elaborate. I don’t like too many things put in it. I like the good tomatoes and the good taste of the sauce. I don’t want too much other stuff in it. I’m not big on that. So especially with chicken parmesan needs to be very light, because the chicken, the cheese, that’s the meal. But let’s make the sauce, of course, you know, I only use olive oil. We don’t use any other oil when we’re making sauce.

Put a little bit of olive oil on the bottom and you’re going to see this is very simple sauce. We throw in the tomatoes. I always use muti tomatoes. They’re the best. We use them in our pizza also. I happen to love them. They time they had deals with them. They’re a little bit expensive, but you can get a deal at on them in the stores. But hey, when you’re eating, you know, you do the best you can. You want the best possible meal. I’m going to make about four or five cutlets today. So we use two cans of sauce.

That’s going to be plenty. But we always have leftover for the pasta. Pasta later on. I love that. And I put the whole tomatoes in there, and then I. I take it and I pound them right in here. We crush the tomatoes right in the pot. Now, here’s another trick. I don’t know about any of you, but I’m not really big on onions in the sauce. When you cut them up and you put them in the sauce, they kind of add a sweetness to it. And I’m not really crazy about that. I don’t like it. So my, my partner and my dear friend Tony, who makes all of our pizza, he taught me something, actually taught my wife, and she showed me that we take a full onion just like this, cut it off here on the edge is good, and we take the entire onion and put it in the sauce.

It doesn’t peel in there. You actually get the flavor of the onion, but you don’t get the little onion bits. And for some reason it’s not as sweet, but you do get the flavor of the onion. Not everybody knows this trick. I never knew it growing up until a few years back. Like I said, my partner and friend Tony showed me, and it’s great. Now, some of you may like the taste of onion, your sauce. If you like it, that’s fine. Then you use it. Put a little bit of that, a little bit of fresh basil.

Always fresh basil. I love this smell of fresh basil. Again, that brings back memories. My grandmother and grandfather used to grow it in their backyard. My grandfather had a whole garden in his backyard. Everything was organic, everything was wonderful. But the smell, you know, isn’t it funny how just smells and things that you hear sometimes can just bring back memories? Amazing. And now we’re going to go back for a minute to, to get the chicken ready, you know, and I believe you see my wines here. There’s various assortments that we have. I believe that a Rennie wine would.

Would pair best with chicken Parmesan. But I have a couple of my varieties here. My team is kind of challenging me. They want me to taste every wine when I eat the chicken and see which one pairs up best. But I think it’s going to be the Areny. Areny is great. It’s really the mother or the parent, I should say, of Pinot Noir. I am a Pinot guy. I like my wines nice and light. And this Areny is very light, like a Pinot. Actually, the most expensive wines out there are really Pinots. So the Areni, for our price, you can’t beat it.

And it’s. It’s really delicious. It really is. But we’re going to taste our white. I love it. Just look at the. Look at the color of this white. You can always tell by the color if you really got a quality white wine. And this color is beautiful. Of course, we have our cherry wine. Now, I’m be honest with you. You know, we have our four flavored wines, our fruit wines. My favorite by far is the BlackBerry. I love it. I love strawberry. Next. Not too keen on a pomegranate, because I never really like pomegranate, but that happens to be the number one seller for some reason.

Everybody loves it. And of course, there’s health value to that. Also the cherry. I’m going to be honest with you. At first, it’s okay. I’m not a big cherry guy, but it’s growing on me. It really is. I’ve been drinking it a little bit more, and it’s growing on me. And of course, look at the bottle. You know, the bottles are a hit. Everybody is loving the bottles. I get more comments and more photos about how people are using our various fruit bottles. They’re making vases out of them, flower vases. On Valentine’s Day, I got a ton of photos about flowers in our fruit wines.

It was really cool. But they taste really delicious. They’re unique. And honestly, people, they’re flying off the shelf. We can’t get enough. All right, let’s get to the chicken. I only use organic foods. We’re kind of very health conscious in our house. Sometimes that’s rough because just about everything they buy is organic. When I say it’s rough because it’s finding it all the time. You can’t always find the right organic foods. But my family, they figure it out and they get it and they bring it home. So our chicken is organic. I’m going to make, I believe, four cutlets today.

I’m going to be feeding my team, my crew, afterwards. It’s funny, every time we do these, they sit down and eat it afterwards, so it’s good. But I have to say, there’s people. The number one hit so far has been the meatballs. Grandma’s meatballs. And I have to tell you this, I never used to order meatballs in a restaurant. Never. I just. They couldn’t, you know, stack up to my grandmother’s meatballs. Why would I bother? They were never right. People use breadcrumbs all the time. Makes the meatballs hard. You don’t use breadcrumbs. You know my recipe.

I’m not going to go over it now. But lately. Lately I’ve been ordering meatballs in just about every Italian restaurant I go to. And I have to say this. The quality has really come up. And I’ve said this many times. These celebrity chefs have raised the standard of cooking and food and preparation, you know, over the past several years. Restaurants are up to it. People really know good food right now in a lot of these better restaurants. And meatballs have been good. I had them last night in a place that we have around here, and they were pretty good.

They’re not grandma’s meatballs, but they’re pretty good. So we got four here. Now I’m going to do something that you must do. Like I said, when you have dried chicken, people throw it out. You can’t even eat it. You can’t even pretend. All it will do is fill you up, but you’re not going to enjoy the taste. You cannot have dried. Chicken has to be moist. There’s a really, a trick to. To preparing chicken right on the barbecue. Especially, you know, if you don’t get it just right, it’s going to be dry, and you’re not going to be able to eat it.

If you cook it too much, it’s going to burn on the outside. Very, very difficult. So here is the trick, and this is what you must do. You gotta pound the chicken. Why do you gotta pound the chicken? Because that’s how you’re gonna get it. Juicy. Gotta be thin. You have it thick like this. Not gonna work. You gotta pound the chicken, and you pound it kind of from the inside out. Let me show you what that means. Okay, Take this. Don’t pound it right through the. The, you know, counter here. But you got to pound it very important, from the inside towards the edges.

You want it really thin. There you go. Even more. Now, if you like it thick, you can do it. It’s going to be a little bit harder to get it moist, but pound the chicken. Get it as thin as you possibly can. I’m telling you. That’s the secret. All right. All right. That’s one. Got four nice pieces of chicken. This really reminds me of the old days. I’m not going to get into that. But be crazy if pounding chicken brings back memories to any one of you. I’m not going there. People. You know, as I’m doing this, I’m thinking about that crazy story.

You might have heard me tell this before about Paul Castellano, the boss of the Gambino family, right? Everybody knows who Paul was. I’m sure you’ve heard it a million times. But, you know, I had a market out in Suffolk County, Long Island. I called it Sonny’s Market, right after my father. Well, we had various stations in there, and we had a meat counter, poultry counter. And so I would buy my chickens from Paul Castellano. He was in that business. So it was Memorial Day weekend, and I ordered a load of chickens, and a woman bought, I think, six or seven hundred dollars worth of chickens for a huge party that she was having.

So I delivered to her. Turns out she comes back on Tuesday, after Memorial Day, on Monday. It’s always on Monday. And she comes back and she says, the chickens were rotten. They were bad. And I looked at them. They had maggots in them. Disgusting. So what do I do? I take all the chickens back. I apologized a hundred times. I gave her back her money. So I called up the supplier, which was Paul Castellano, I think is his nephew, or I forget who it was, but he’s related to Paul, his company, right? And I told him, I’m not paying for the chickens.

They were bad. There was maga gin. He said, no, you’re paying for the chickens. I said, no, I’m not. One word led to another. He starts cursing me out. I curse him out. Boom, boom, boom. We hang up the phone. That’s it. Next morning, I get a call from my boss at the time, Andrew Russo. I was a. I wasn’t a soldier. I was a recruit at the time, right? Michael, get into Brooklyn right away. Oh, man. What happened? Right. Had no idea. I go to Brooklyn, and I sit with Andrew, and the acting boss, Tom DiBello, was there.

Tell me what happened with that phone call you had with Paulie’s relative. So I told him what happened. He said, did you curse him out. I said, well, he cursed me out, and I cursed him out. Yeah, we went back and forth. He said, do you know who that is? And blah, blah, blah. He starts to get into me, starts to bawl me out. He said, now Paul wants to see you. You’re in trouble. This is Paul Castellano’s relative. I said, well, what do I know? You know, the guy gets nasty with me on the phone.

What am I supposed to do? Just keep my mouth shut? Now we got to sit down with Paul Castellano over chickens. $700 worth of chickens, right? So Paul is really upset with me. They told me, before you go in, they said, don’t say a word. I don’t care what Paul says to you. Don’t say a word. Don’t answer, don’t talk, don’t do anything. I’m sitting there, Paul’s bawling me out, how dare you do this? And you’re disrespectful and all of this, and I’m not saying a word. Long story short, this was a two hour thing over chickens, right? Long story short, I had told him, I’m not buying any more chickens from you.

The deal came down that I didn’t have to pay for the chickens, but I had to continue buying the chickens off of him. Right? Okay, that’s fine. No problem. We get in the car, and I thought I was going to get a real, you know, tongue lashing again. We get in the car. I’ll never forget Andrew Russo, who I loved, and Tom Dibella. They look at me, they get real stern in their eyes, and then they crack up laughing, laughing, laughing, laughing. Do you believe that you had Paul Castellano fighting over $700 worth of chickens just to show you what kind of guy he was.

And then they started saying things about him, and he was laughing and everything else. So it was. It was crazy. But could you imagine that this is the boss of the family getting mad over $700 worth of chickens. And the chickens were bad. I was right. Don’t get me wrong in that situation. But anyway, all right, so we got this nice and pounded. All right, Looking good. And I’m going to use about four eggs on this for. For these four, you see how much bigger they got because they’re pounded out. You got to pound them. Let me mix this up really good.

I’m just wondering, what do you think would be the best pairing? Would you think it would be a red or a white? Usually when you have a red sauce, I think a red wine of Some variety would be best, but you never know. So here’s what we have here. We have regular flour, right? Then we have Italian breadcrumbs. I like them because they’re seasoned. And then obviously, we have eggs. And we know what the eggs are for. So first thing we do, we take the chicken and we put it in a flour. Now, some people are saying, why flour? Why don’t you put it directly in the eggs and then to the breadcrumbs? This is a secret.

The flour is there for a reason. Make sure you got it really good. Cover it really good. Just like that, Okay? Then we go in the eggs, cover it really good. And then obviously, the breadcrumbs. Make sure you get fully breaded. Very important. Both sides fully breaded. Don’t miss her spot. That’s one. We’re gonna do this four times. You know, another good memory I had, my grandmother, she used to make homemade raviolis. She made it from scratch with the dough. Who likes ravioli? If you like ravioli in the comments, let me know. I might even do this because I sat and watched her so many times on Sunday mornings.

This was a big treat when she made raviolis. I watched her so many times that I can make them. It’s a big process to starting making the dough. It really is. But I’m telling you, nothing like it. Delicious. I mean, delicious. But I’ll never forget my grandmother. You know, one of the regrets I have, my grandmother, I loved her, man. You know, through all the turmoil in my life, my grandparents, they were there for me all the time. When we were going through so much trouble, they were always there for me. They watched my mother. My mother was young.

She was 16 years old when I was born. What did she know about raising her kid? You know? And my grandparents, they really raised me. When my dad, too, was going through all his troubles, I spent so much time with them. I really loved them. One of the regrets I have is that the last years of their life, I was in prison for both of my grandparents, and I never got to their funeral. I never got to see him for several years before they passed away. You know, it’s one of the regrets that I really have.

Really troublesome. I think about it quite a bit. My grandfather. Rocky, right? His name was Rocky. I gotta tell you this story about Rocky. He was a bus driver in Brooklyn for 45 years. Every year, every year, he would win the good driver award. Every single year. One year, for some reason, I think somebody hit him while the bus was parked. And because of that he didn’t get the Good Driver award. He was destroyed over it. It was like this was the biggest thing to him because he had such pride in his work as a bus driver, right? I felt so bad for him.

I’ll never forget. I said, grandpa, what are you worried about? You got it. 44 years, one year. No, no, no, it wasn’t my fault. And you know, this guy hit me and it was all that. But I felt so bad for him because he was so broken up. But I got to tell you this about my grandfather. We used to watch baseball all the time, right? I used to be by my grandparents house. My grandmother used to cook. Mom and dad, we were all there. We used to go up, we used to watch baseball. And my grandfather, anytime there was a black player, he didn’t like the black.

He wasn’t as good as Mickey Mantle. He wasn’t as good as Lou Gehrig, Willie Mays wasn’t as good as any of the white players, right? So I say, grandpa, you’re a racist. Why do you talk? These are great ballplayers. Nah, they weren’t as good as Lou Gehrig and then Yogi Berra because Yogi was Italian. So my grandfather loved him. And I said, grandpa, you’re a racist. No, I’m not. They’re just not as good. All right, cut to one day, I’m young and he takes me on his bus. He was watching me for some reason, I don’t know what.

So I went with him on his bus. Gotta make sure you get the flour on it. It’s important. You gotta cover it good. Some of you, you may not use flour. Don’t cheat. Watch this recipe. Don’t cheat. Use the flour. Trust me. Makes it better. So anyway, we’re on the bus and all of a sudden all of these black women are coming on the bus and they’re bringing him fried chicken and who don’t have their money. And they’re hugging my grandfather. And they’re all black in that area, and they’re putting all this love on my grandfather.

And he’s hugging them back. And you know, guys are coming in, they’re tapping him. Hey, Rocky. Because they know him because he’s driving that route for so many years. And I looked at him, I said, you know, he’s not racist. He just believes that white guys are better ball players. That was it. But it really, it really got me because I gotta tell you, my grandfather, if there was a nice guy award, he would win it every year. Every year. He was just the nicest guy you ever want to meet. Everybody had good things to say about my grandfather, but that was something.

You know, sometimes you could misjudge people, you know, really. But, you know, I’m telling you, just making this food is bringing all these stories and memories back for me, you know, it’s good therapy sometimes to cook. I got to tell you that. All right, so we got four nice cutlets now. Perfect. Gonna make sure we got enough breadcrumbs on them, all right? Now, this was. This was my mother’s father, my maternal grandfather. I gotta tell you about my father’s father, Tudy. They called him Tutti the Lion. He was a big guy, was like 6 foot 4.

Everybody in the mob respected my grandfather. Everybody. But he never wanted to be a made guy. He could have been, but he never wanted. My grandfather had a bakery in Brooklyn. Everybody used to come to that bakery. Everybody who’s anybody. That’s how my father got involved with mob guys, because they all used to come and pay respects to my grandfather. My grandfather immigrated here, you know, from Italy, legally, you know, came through Ellis island, did it all legally, but they all respected him. When my father, who was an amateur boxer, was being seen by a lot of the mob guys, and my grandfather seen him kind of getting attracted, my grandfather told him, I don’t want you to get involved in that life.

My father told me this. He said, your life is not your own when you get involved in that life. Now, my father didn’t listen to him, obviously. My father got straightened out, I think, when he was 33 years old. I know a lot of people say he was 16. That’s not true. He was 30, 32, 33 years old. And my grandfather wasn’t happy about it, that much I know. But, hey, things are what they are, right? So now we get ready to fry the cutlets. Now, let me tell you what you got to do when you’re frying these cutlets.

Very important. You got to have the heat, I would say, at about 350 degrees. Now, you’re not going to put a thermometer in there and find out, but you need it at the right temperature. And you can test it because you want it to be crispy. You want it to be crispy. You don’t have to cook them long, only a few minutes. But you want it to be crispy. It’s very important. You don’t want anything to be soggy. And if the oil is not hot enough, the chicken is going to get soggy. No good. It’s Got to be crisp.

Important. Most of the restaurants that you go into, they’re going to serve pasta. They might give you a choice, but they’re going to serve pasta with it and usually spaghetti. So the water is boiling. I’m ready to put the spaghetti in, let it boil. Everybody thinks that the chicken parmesan came from Italy. It did not. As a matter of fact. I remember I was in Italy and I was asking. I didn’t see it on the menu. This was several years ago. And I asked the waiter, I said, chicken parmigiani. He looked at me, he said, americano.

Americano? I said, yes. He said, no, no, Italiano. Americano. I said, okay, don’t get mad at me. I said, now, the other funny thing is that chicken parmesan is not really made with parmesan cheese. It’s made with mozzarella. Another thing that drives me crazy. Some people just don’t know how to say things properly in Italian. When I go like, mozzarella, we used to say mozzarella. Mozzarella. You know, you got to at least get the Italian lingo down a little bit. I probably have wine three, four times a week, but I love my wine, always with something to eat.

I normally don’t sit down and just have a glass of wine. Sometimes if I’m having a cigar, I’m sitting out in the backyard with a couple of guys, and we’re just talking. We’ll have a glass of wine and have a cigar. It’s just so relaxing. It really is, you know. And again, if I didn’t have my own wine, I’d been saying the same thing. I mean, just a glass of wine, sitting around with people that you love, people that you, you know, you’re friendly with, you sit down and talk, and it’s just. There’s nothing like it.

It really isn’t. I believe the arena is going to be the one. By the way, we do have, I believe, a few bottles of this left. This was our 50th anniversary wine special. Went crazy. Everybody loved it. And this bottle is a little bit different. It’s our Areny, but a little different because, you know, our wine comes from Armenia. Well, they have a different process now in squeezing the grapes, and I don’t know exactly what they did. No hand touches these grapes. It’s squeezed, and the pressure gets out all the juice in a way that it just enhanced the taste.

I was kind of stunned myself, because when I tasted out of that bottle, I said, what’s up? This tastes a little different. It’s delicious. And they told me that Armenia has a different process. And I don’t know if you know these people, but they’re saying the healthiest wines now are not from the United States. I live in this country. I love it. I don’t knock it, but they’re not from the United States anymore. Too many additives. Like a lot of the other food that we have here that the FDA allows to come in. The best, healthiest wines are all coming out of Europe, and that includes Armenia.

All coming out of Europe. Don’t take my word for it, even though you should. Okay, look it up. They’re all coming from Europe. They’re healthier. There’s less sulfites in our wine. You don’t get drunk like you did before. I mean, look. I mean, again, you don’t drink like a crazy person, a madman. But you can enjoy your wine and not wake up with a headache or a hangover the next day. And that’s important to me. I’ll tell you what. I don’t want a headache or anything else. If I think I drank too much, I’m going to take two aspirin before I go to bed.

I never have to do it with this wine, and I really mean that. Try it. Just try it. You’ll see. The oil is just hot enough again. You got to make sure the oil is the right temperature. You don’t want it to where it’s not hot enough or the chicken will be soggy. And you don’t want soggy chicken. That ruins it right off the bat. All right, finish with this. I’m going to put it in the back in the sink. For all you watching. I don’t know if you can see. You got a sneak peek of my backyard.

It’s wintertime here, you know. Unfortunately, it was only 78 degrees today. I’m sorry for all you people back East. I’m not rubbing it in, but it is what it is. California, if we ever get the politics and the economics right, there’s no better place to live. It’s a beautiful state. I’m not going to get into the politics of it. But I’m telling you, you know, listen, I’m being honest with you. I don’t want to be in the cold anymore. I got so many friends of mine from New York, from. From Cleveland, Ohio, saying to me, mike, they’re running to Florida.

They’re running every place. This was a tough winter. I feel bad for many of you back there. I have a lot of family back there, and they really struggled through this winter. It was a tough one. Okay, we’re ready for the chicken. All right, you hear that sizzle? Very important. Very, very important. I want you to get a good look at this. See how it’s sizzling there? That’s how it’s got to be. Just about two minutes per side. Not too much. I don’t know about all of you, but I like my. My pasta al dente. You know what that means? Never too soft.

Not too hard, but not too soft. Al dente, an Italian phrase meaning just right, basically. Is there anybody out there that doesn’t like pasta? I’ve never come across anyone that doesn’t like pasta of some kind. And please don’t ever refer to pasta as noodles. My daughter’s fiance, he called it noodles once. I almost threw him out of the house. Noodles come from China, not from Italy. So let me ask you, how do you like this apron? First of all, pretty nice, right? For those of you that watch my YouTube channel, you see those beautiful tapestries that we have up there? You know, same artist did all of this.

Terrific. Looking good. See how that’s golden brown? That’s how it’s got to be. Golden brown. Delicious. Got to be crispy. You don’t want it soggy. If it’s soggy, you ruined it. All right, almost ready again. Notice how this is golden brown. I can tell you this, if we didn’t put it in the flour first, it wouldn’t look like this. Flour is the key. Almost ready. Check the pasta. Another minute. There again, al dente. Look at that. Golden brown on both sides. Some of the oil drop off. This is going to be terrific. I can tell once we.

We get this prepared, I’m going to put some sauce on there, some nice Parmesan, and some mozzarella cheese. A little Parmesan. Even though, like I said, it’s not. It’s not really chicken Parmesan. It’s chicken mozzarella, but we call it chicken parmesan. It came from eggplant parmesan, which is an Italian dish that you get in Italy. But if you ask them for chicken parmesan, they’re going to say Americano. No, we don’t have that here. I have to also say this. I am really pleased with all of the good feedback we’re getting from all of our wines. I have to tell you, I was in a major retail outlet today, and I was in Costco, actually, and they’re carrying our wines in a lot of different places, and they have both of our Areny and our Malbec.

And I went in there for a few minutes. I sold nine bottles of wine in about five minutes. The manager come over to me. He says, hey, I want to hire you. I said, excuse me. I said, I’m not staying here that much longer. But. But if I did, I would sell all your wine. No doubt about. We sold nine bottles of wine in about 10 minutes. Everybody was coming over. It was really fun. Yeah, there was one Mama Luke. You can always tell a Mama Luke by the way they dress. You know, it’s. Don’t let me get into that too much.

What the Mama. Look at the air. You like that word, Mama Luke. You know, if you. If you want to hear it on. On a screen, you go to. Robert De Niro said it. Forget about De Niro right now. But we’re not going to talk about that. But Robert De Niro said it in. When he was the Fighter, Raging Bull, when he was talking to Joe Pesci, and he said, I’m a. I’m a. Look at me. Look at me. I’m a Mama Luke. You guys love that name. Remember we started doing Mama Luke of the Week, and then for some reason, we discontinued that.

I should bring it back. The problem is there’s never one mamaluke. There’s so many Mama Lukes. It would take up a whole, you know, video session if I were to do it. One thing I do have to tell you, though, people. Food brings people together. I can tell you that you put a good meal in front of anybody and they’re going to forget their troubles and they’re going to want to eat. Trust me on that. I’ve seen, you know, even family arguments when the food is good. Nobody’s talking, everybody’s eating. That’s the key. It’s got to be good.

Like this chicken. You’re going to taste. You hear that? You got to hear that crackle. And you know, the oil is hot enough. And I hope you notice. You see how much bigger this chicken got when we started pounding it? Because if not, it’s going to be this thick and it’s harder to cook. Trust me. You got to pound it and get it nice and thin. Pasta is ready, by the way. When you guys weren’t looking, I did put salt in the water for the pasta. You always put salt in there so the pasta doesn’t stick.

Don’t forget that. But I taught you that already, so hopefully you remember that from the last video. Now, some of you got mad at me because I put a Little olive oil in the water. And people. Oh, you don’t put olive oil. Yes, you can, because the oil also doesn’t make the pasta stick. That’s the only reason it’s in there. Just so that the pasta doesn’t stick. But salt is better. I will admit that. It’s okay. Golden brown. Catch the color. I’m telling you, it wouldn’t be this color without the flour. So make sure you put the flour very nice.

Okay, so here we go. We got our beautiful cutlets. Golden brown. Now, I put a little sauce on them. Just like that, over the top, Making me hungry. People, I’m a guy. I don’t know about any of you, but I like a lot of sauce on everything. In my pasta, I always have extra sauce. Put it on to your liking. Delicious. Cover the whole cutlet. And now the mozzarella cheese. Remember what I said? Not mozzarella. Mozzarella. You can be as generous as you like with the mozzarella. Sprinkle it on. Now, you could also use the bulk mozzarella and just slice it and put it on there if you like.

Either way, it’s delicious. People, I have to be honest. I’ve been making sauce all my life, but my wife is actually a better cook than I am when it comes to just about anything. Maybe the meatballs. I got a beat on that. She doesn’t make meatballs, but she loves mine. Now, remember what I told you. Don’t go to Italy and ask for chicken parmesan. They may throw you out. They’re not shy. There. All right, that’s it. Now we go into the oven. We bake it at about 350 degrees for about 15 minutes, 20 minutes tops. Because remember, it’s cooked.

Oven was preset at about 350. Slap it in there. Really only need it until the cheese melts. That’s it. Because the chicken is cooked. The sauce is cooked already. And while we’re doing that, I’ll get the pasta ready. Like I said, people. Me, I love a lot of sauce on everything. All right, we’re ready to go. This is your side dish, like I said. You know, a lot of restaurants, you can put anything on the side with chicken parmesan, but for me, spaghetti is always the best. Remember what I said? Al dente for you non Italians.

You know what that means? It means just right. You don’t want it soft and mushy. No good. You don’t want to overcook your pasta. No good. So what do you think, people? You think it’s Going to be the areny. I’m going to open up these other two bottles. Three bottles, actually. I’m going to taste them all, and then I’ll let you know what I think pairs best with chicken parmesan. But I love a rennie. For me, whenever there’s a sauce involved, I always like a red. I didn’t really tell you the story behind the 50 year.

I’m gonna open it up, actually. But here it is, a beautiful bottle. And I’m telling you, people are just loving this. Really loving this. 50 years ago on October 31, 1975, 50 years ago last Halloween was the night that I took an oath and became a made man. I think you all know what that means by now. I’m not celebrating the fact that I got made. I’m celebrating the fact that I’m alive and free 50 years later, when most people thought that I wouldn’t be myself included. We’ll go for the white. I love the color of this white wine.

It’s so smooth and light. We’re going to try the cherry, too. I don’t know about cherrywood sauce, but we’ll give it a try. All right, let’s check. The chicken should be done. Okay. Beautiful. Absolutely. Beautiful little pasta on the side. How does that look, people? Come on. All right, now look. Beautiful or what? Come on. Beautiful chicken parmesan, nice little spaghetti pasta on the side. Amelia can’t beat. Now let me try. I’m going to taste it. I normally don’t eat my own, you know, food in front of everybody, but we’re going to do it because I have to do the wine tasting.

Ah, look at that. Nice and white and beautiful inside. I’m telling you, the organic chicken does make a difference. Mmm. Wow. That’s good. Really good. A little bit of pasta. How many of you use a spoon when you eat pasta in Italy? You’re not supposed to do that. You’re supposed to twirl it against the dish. In America, we do what we want. I usually have a spoon. Okay, this is the ureni. I have to tell you, it’s good. It’s really a perfect pairing. All right, but let’s continue. We’ll move on. Let me try now. Our white.

Like I said, normally when I eat pasta, it’s always a red. But we’ll try it. I want you to see the color of this. Look at that. It’s like crystal clear. Really says something to you when your white wine looks like that. Really good. Another bite. Really good. I have to tell you, people this white wine is so good. It really is. It’s so light. It goes down so easy. Very smooth. Really nice. You know, normally I have white at lunch with something lighter, but this is working really well. I have to say it. I can go either way at this point.

Let me try the cherry. Now. This is a real test for me because honestly, wasn’t crazy about the cherry. A lot of people like it, but, you know, we all have our different tastes. I have to tell you people, these fruit wines, they are flying off the shelves in all the major stores that we have them in. We actually cannot get enough of them. The demand was so high that we had to have them flown in from Armenia to meet the demand. It takes about 30 to 40 days by ship. We had to have them flown in.

Paid a little more for it, but it was worth it, keep our customers happy. All right, here’s the cherry. You can see the. The color on that really deep red. I’m telling you right now, you compare any one of these wines with this dish, I really mean it. Very, very good. I’m starting. This is growing on me. You know, I try a lot of my wines, you know, quite often, because I just really want to see. It’s really growing on me. It really is. The cherry is good. I have to say it. All right. I almost hate to open this bottle.

This bottle is so beautiful. I hate to open it, but I’m not worried. We’re going to drink it. Now, remember, this is the new process that they have in Armenia that they were very excited about. Very excited to tell me. You know, it’s a new system of squeezing the grapes. Hands never touch it. It’s. It’s air pressured, and I don’t know how many pounds of pressure that they put on it, but the taste was really different the last time I tried this. I want to see if it’s the same. We do have a few bottles of this left, by the way.

They were made to order. We sold. Just about sold out on them. Smell is good, by the way. This chicken is great. This is a winner. You serve this to your guests or even have it at home. Wasn’t that difficult. Didn’t take that long. The chicken is very moist. What was the trick? The oil has to be very hot. 350 degrees. Obviously, you’re not going to put a temperature in there, but just test it. You got to see that crackle. You got to see it crackling like that. Okay, now this is the Urani again. Try this again.

There is a difference. You know, there is a slight difference. This is. Is bolder. It’s a little bit bolder. Same grape, same wine, different process. It’s a little bit bolder, I have to tell you. And it’s delicious. You know what? People, they all pair well with this meal. With chicken Parmesan. They all pair well with pasta. Chicken Parmesan. I have to say it. I really mean it. Even the white, which I’m very surprised. And I would tell you, I don’t, you know, I don’t give you a snow job, so to speak. I would tell you, if you like wine, this is a good pairing, if you like white.

But when you buy a bottle of this, the few that we have Left, you get 50 lessons, life lessons that I learned throughout my life. Very, very, very encouraging and very beneficial to all of you. I wrote them up myself. You buy a bottle of this wine, it’s included in that. So again, we have a few bottles left, if you’re interested. People, I have to tell you, you know, I am. I’m extremely proud and very, very proud to put my name on all of these wines. I really mean that. Remember what I’m telling you. What I said before is true.

You can look it up, you can read it, whatever. All right. The healthiest wines right now are coming out of Europe. Europe? Why? Because the FDA approves things here. Additives to the wine, like arsenic, and I think it’s glycosyphate, something like that, they call it, which is a pesticide that they put on all the grapes here. They’re banned in Europe. You don’t have the additives. That’s why even the food in Europe is healthier to eat, because you don’t have all of the additives that they put here in America for some reason. I don’t know why, but hopefully RFK Jr is taking care of that.

So, people, I got to tell you, chicken Parmesan, it’s a winner. You know, the whole thing takes you 30 minutes. You can sit down and have a meal. Remember the recipe. Remember to pound the chicken. Remember to put the flour in there. Very, very important. That’s what makes it golden brown. Remember to heat that, you know, just properly, so you see it crackling like that. And you only cook it, you know, one or two minutes aside, and you got it done. A terrific meal. Put a little pasta on the side, and people, you can’t beat it.

That’s an offer that you shouldn’t refuse. Remember that. So go and buy our wines. I know you’re going to Enjoy it. I have to tell you this. You know, the wine business has been struggling a little bit. Not us. People are seeing our wine, enjoying our wine. We’re having the best year that we ever had. And it’s thanks to all of you that have been patroning us in such a way. It’s very, very encouraging when I get messages from all of you, and I really do, of how much you’re loving the wine and liking the wine and we’re seeing it people.

So I want to thank you again for that. Our next recipe is going to be chicken cacciatore. That is from Italy. That is an Italian dish. You’re going to love it just like this. I guarantee, if you were here to have a bite of it, you would say, michael, this is terrific. Just follow the same recipe. Remember, pound the chicken. Get the organic chicken. It’s better for you. Pound the chicken. Flour, always. Couple of eggs, you know, Then Italian breadcrumbs. Great. And then put it in there. Make sure the temperature is right. And with the pasta, it’s got to be al dente.

Don’t overcook it. If you overcook it, it takes away the taste. You’re killing it. Don’t kill the pasta. And don’t ever call it noodles. If you call it noodles, don’t come on my site, please. Okay? That’s for China. It’s not for Italy. All right, my friends, if you want the recipe, just click on the link below. We got the recipe all prepared for you. You can take it away, cook it, and then comment, let me know how you like it, like you did with the meatballs. And love that. Love hearing from you. And also, if you want this terrific apron, okay, you can click on the link below.

Hey, what’s better than this? You know, show people your love of the mob genre and these great stars. Come on. Marlon Brando Armandesante, a good friend of mine. Terrific movie. I always promote that movie. You gotta watch it. But just click on the link below. You’re gonna see a lot of other wonderful merchandise that he has, all in this mob genre. So that’s it. The recipe. Click on the link below. The apron. Same thing. Love all of you. And how do I always leave you people? Same way I’m not doing a video. But I’m going to leave you the same way.

Be safe, be healthy, follow my recipes, and you’re going to eat healthy. I promise you. And yes, may God bless each and every one of you, and I will see you next time. Take care. Sa.
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