Adam Liaw's chicken parmigiana burger

This isn’t your regular chicken burger! Adam Liaw takes the classic pub chicken parmi and transforms it into a modern chicken burger, using chicken thigh instead of breast, to add extra moisture and flavour and a red wine vinegar passata, to cut through the richness of the fried chicken.

Credit: Jiwon Kim

• serves

  4

• prep

  10 minutes

• cook

  25 minutes

• difficulty

  Easy

Ingredients

• 4 chicken thigh fillets
• Salt and black pepper
• 1 cup (150 g) plain flour
• 1 tsp chicken stock powder
• 3 eggs
• 3 cups breadcrumbs
• 2 tbsp finely chopped flat-leaf parsley
• 1 litre vegetable oil, for shallow-frying
• 1 cup roughly grated mozzarella cheese
• 4 milk buns (or brioche-style buns)
• Melted butter, butter lettuce leaves, sliced tomato, and red onion rings, to serve

For the sour tomato sauce

• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 1 clove garlic, finely chopped
• 300 ml passata
• ½ cup tomato sauce (ketchup)
• 1 tsp dried oregano
• 1 tsp sugar
• 2 tbsp red wine vinegar
• 3 tbsp finely chopped flat-leaf parsley

Instructions

1. To make the sour tomato sauce, heat the oil in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Add the garlic and cook, stirring, for 1 minute, or until fragrant. Stir through the passata, ketchup, oregano and sugar. Bring to a light simmer, cover and cook for 10 minutes. Remove from the heat and stir through the red wine vinegar and parsley. Set aside.
   
2. Season the chicken thighs well on both sides with salt and black pepper.
   
3. Prepare a crumbing station with three shallow bowls, combine the flour and chicken stock powder in the first bowl, beat the eggs with a generous splash of water in the second and combine the breadcrumbs and parsley in the third.
   
4. Heat the oil in a large saucepan to 170˚C. Take a skewer and pick up one piece of chicken, transfer to the flour and coat lightly. Dust off any excess flour and transfer to the egg mixture using the skewer again. Lastly, coat the chicken in the breadcrumb mixture, pressing it onto the chicken and shaking off any excess.
   
5. Fry the crumbed chicken for 2-3 minutes each side, or until golden-brown and cooked through, then remove and drain on a wire rack, propping up one side of the rack so the schnitzels drain on an angle.
   
6. Preheat the oven grill on high heat. Spread the crumbed chicken generously with the prepared sour tomato sauce, then sprinkle with cheese. Grill for 5 minutes, or until the cheese is golden. Toast the burger buns, then brush with a little melted butter.
   
7. To serve, fill the burger buns with lettuce, tomato, onion and the chicken parmigiana.

Photography by Jiwon Kim.

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Cook's Notes

Oven temperatures are for conventional; if using fan-forced (convection), reduce the temperature by 20˚C. | We use Australian tablespoons and cups: 1 teaspoon equals 5 ml; 1 tablespoon equals 20 ml; 1 cup equals 250 ml. | All herbs are fresh (unless specified) and cups are lightly packed. | All vegetables are medium size and peeled, unless specified. | All eggs are 55-60 g, unless specified.