How many parmo eating Teessiders have we?

Question

Yes stand up and be counted!! How many of you are there out there?

Answer 1

West Ham's Parmo Experience

Ever since we've had friends from Boro we've heard of the parmo. My son has become good mates with a lad from Eston and has stayed up there a few times, although I admit that I myself have never been to Teesside.

On one of his visits he had his first parmo in Boro town centre although he can't remember exactly where he got it from. When he came home he told us 'you've gotta try one' and that his mate's mum along with thousands of other Teessiders cooked them at home.

So we decided to have a go at cooking a parmo ourselves. After a quick phone call to Boro we went shopping and picked up all the ingredients. We then went back home and were soon back on the phone to Boro for cooking instructions, which were as follows:

Ingredients

Skinless/boneless chicken breasts
One beaten raw egg
Breadcrumbs
Parmesan cheese
Béchamel sauce

Cooking instructions

Dip the chicken into the egg and then into the breadcrumbs to coat. Put into the deep fat fryer until browned. Take out and top first with fresh grated parmesan then béchamel sauce and then again with the parmesan. Place in the oven for around twenty minutes on 200C.

We have it with chips and rocket salad, served with a glass of red wine. Luvly jubly.

This is a meal for us at least once a week and is as good as pie 'n' mash any day. What I can't understand is why it isn't eaten much further afield than Teesside as we are the only Londoners we know who have tried it, despite recommending it to others. I just can't understand why people don't try new stuff.

Now I'm not suggesting you all try a bowl of jellied eels - I tried them once and never again - but I would recommend pie 'n' mash 'n' liqueur. A lot of people don't like the look of the liqueur but it's only flour, water and parsley.

How many of us smelling garlic bread for the first time said 'no not for me'? And yet now nearly everybody under the age of fifty-five enjoys it. How many of us have older relations who won't try a Chinese or Indian saying 'you won't catch me eating that foreign muck'?

So I say this 'get out and try a parmo' it's the new kebab and it's made in England.

So my final comments:

Italian: molto buono mangiare
Cockney: luvly nose-bag guvnor

Enjoy

Westham

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Cantina Augusto, Clerkenwell Road, London EC2

Petto di Pollo alla Parmigiana

First of all, the name of the dish is from memory so, if I've got it wrong and any Italian epicures (who I'm sure account for a significant percentage of the traffic on this site) happen to be reading, I offer my apologies.

As a humble drone in the corporate hive, I don't get taken out for meals that often so, when I saw an email from a director's secretary in my inbox with a subject field containing the single most beautiful word in the language, 'Lunch', I was well chuffed. Admittedly my excitement was tempered by the fact that the same subject field also contained the words 'with Keith from the Inland Revenue' but I was still pleased to be reminded of an upcoming rare treat.

Clerkenwell has so many great restaurants that hardly anyone (and certainly not your correspondent) has the time or money to keep up-to-date with all of them. Would we, I wondered, be going around the corner to the original gastropub, The Eagle, or perhaps one of the more recent additions to Clerkenwell's gastropub roster, The Gunmakers or The Coach and Horses? Perhaps we'd be going to the Japanese place on Rosebery Avenue (haven't been but I'm told it's sensational) or could we (oh please) be going to Exmouth Market to visit Moro, which is to Spanish/North African food what The River Café is to Italian? Classic provincial French in The Bleeding Heart bistro? Or, if we're trying to impress, maybe the company card would stretch to the restaurant proper! Perhaps Potemkin, for blinis, Siberian dumplings and vodka?

All these possibilities and more tumbled deliciously through my mind.and then I opened the email. Cantina Augusto. Cantina. Au. Gusto. Can-bleeding-tina. The bogmost of bog-standard Trats, a leftover from the eighties (Seventies maybe?), with an uninspiring menu, décor to match and a bloody awful acoustic. OK if you fancy a pizza and a glass of wine but a treat? No.

So by the time I came to order, my mood was a mix of nervousness and disappointment, not a winning combo. I looked at the menu, decided on a starter (Insalata tricolore. I said it was uninspiring.) and turned to the mains, where I saw Petto di Pollo alla Parmigiana and thought to myself, 'Blimey, that sounds like a parmo to me!' I have a confession to make at this point. I'm yet to try the national dish of Teesside. I'll pause to let that sink in. That's right, I've never eaten a parmo. I left before they got popular you see and my fleeting visits since have centred around football rather than food and the whole parmo phenomenom passed me by until I started posting on Boro MBs. So I ordered it.

I don't think it was quite (or even nearly) a parmo, as known on Teesside. It wasn't breadcrumbed, first of all and it was topped with cheese sauce, ham and parmesan and came with chips (v poor) and broccoli (decent, properly cooked, but two florets?). The meat itself was a butterfly breast fillet and was nicely cooked, being hot, juicy and yielding, and had as much flavour as you'd expect from a standard restaurant chicken breast nowadays, which is to say, none. The cheese sauce was a suspiciously bright orange colour and rather floury. The other toppings were a decent piece of Parma ham and a cloud of good-quality fresh-grated parmesan. The combination worked better than the individual parts and I must say I enjoyed it. The (all-important, I understand) grease-to-stodge ratio was quite high as the sauce was artery clogging, there were no breadcrumbs and I couldn't eat many of the bloody awful chips. Why didn't I complain? Because I was entertaining and I didn't want to make a scene. I know, pathetic. Nice enough overall if disappointing for the price (£14).
The Wizard of Smog 2004

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Pizzeria Giuseppe, 33 rue Marche aux Fromages - 1000 Brussels

Escalope di'Parmigiano

Brussels is a really cool place and so when my dear lady friend said that she wanted to spend the day there on her birthday, I was only too happy to oblige with the driving. It's only a two hour journey from where we live and as we had all day, we set off mid morning and stopped off for lunch at a motorway restaurant somewhere in Belgium. The Belgians are really crap at football but seem to have mastered the art forms of food and beer in a rather good way, so I ordered my favourite Flemish dish of vol-au-vent and filled up nicely on that.

It was a really hot day. Not sunny but just horribly hot and sticky and as we strolled around Brussels Grote Markt (Big Market), it was obvious that the best thing to do was to find somewhere decent for a sit down. As you wander off the market main drag, you will come across several streets, all with a themed food flavour. One street was full of Greek and Turkish restaurants, another was all fish restaurants but the one that took my fancy was the Italian street. But after the very large vol-au-vent that I had pigged for lunch, I had no hunger and because I was driving, I had no desire for alcohol. Well, I did but I couldn't!

The Italian restaurants all had very large red boards outside their premises with the full menus on and funnily enough, every one was in the same style. They were probably all done by the same guy. I had a look at a couple and they all failed to ignite my appetite. I remember making a lame joke about not being able to get a Parmo in this country, let alone this town and then as we turned a corner, something jumped out of a menu and slapped me right in the face. MY GOD! ESCALOPE DI' PARMIGIANO!! THAT SOUNDS PRETTY MUCH LIKE A PARMO TO ME!

Suddenly, my appetite was back with a vengeance and the choice of where we were going to eat was instantaneously made. I didn't even need to look at the menu when we ordered.

I was asked if I would like frittes (chips) or spaghetti with my parmigiano. I insisted that the waiter refer to it as a parmo and went for the spaghetti, which to me was a brand new phenomena in parmo eating. And what did they bring me? A thin slice of veal, topped with three thin slices of courgette, all covered in that gritty parmesan cheese that you can get in the dairy counter at any supermarket, plain spaghetti and a tomato sauce, which I think should have been over the spaghetti but was actually covering half of the parmo. A little salad was present on the plate and the whole meal was floating gently in a pool of orange coloured oil.

"OI, GIUSEPPE. WHAT THE **** ARE THESE ******* COURGETTES DOING ON MY ******* PARMO!?" If I'd have wanted extra exotic vegetables with my main course, I'd have gone to McDonald's and eaten the gherkins on my burger! And why were there no breadcrumbs on the meat? ******* sacrilege, or what!? OK, I didn't say that but I wanted to. This was not the real thing that you get in Middlesbrough, but it was OK. I probably would have enjoyed it a lot more if I hadn't had such a large lunch earlier in the day.

The veal tasted very special but they should have used real parmesan cheese and not the powdered stuff that you usually get in a little dish with a pasta meal. It was the real Italian McCoy, not the Boro version and although it was good to see a Teesside speciality being offered in a foreign land, it was not the taste of home that I expected. I bet Boro Pizza don't put courgettes on their parmos!
SG

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Home, Simmerath, Germany

German Parmos


The Rarely Sighted German Parmo and Veggie version

It's really deep in the countryside where we live and one day, this farmer called us and asked if we wanted some beef at a very good price? Well, the price was very good, so I said "Yeah, bring it over". Well, that was four months ago and after having steak for breakfast nearly every day since and roast beef for dinner nearly every night, I am still nowhere near finishing it. So on Friday, we decided to have a Martini night and for some reason, I was not allowed in the kitchen. Which was fine by me but what delights were being created that required the utmost secrecy? German Parmos, that's what!

And pretty damn good they were as well! In fact, the best meal that we have had in my time over here! I've never had a beef parmo before and the Mrs is a vegetarian, so she had never had a parmo but the veggie ones that she made for herself from potato and spinach looked really great and mine were simply outstanding, if a little unconventional. They were also the most grease free parmos that I have ever eaten and now, there will be no problem at all to use up that half a cow that is still in the freezer.


My compliments to the chef!

So how did this recipe come about? Well apparently, there is a Bavarian dish that is remarkably similar to parmo and after my recent voyages to Boro and subsequent ravings of the national dish of Teesside, she decided that she was going to have a go at making me one. And a damn fine job she did as well.

So if you are ever travelling this way and see beef parmos for sale in a restaurant somewhere, rest assured, you will know who invented them and how the German Parmo was first born. Any further information on the Bavarian recipe will also be much appreciated.
SG



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If you have discovered a Parmo outside the Teesside area, then we need to know, so please get in touch ... burp...

Answer 2

parmos are like a chicken base with a pizza topping if im not misaken

Answer 3

I used to eat them before I became a vegetarian! They were so great after a night out round the town! My boyfriend loves them and the Casino serve them now even tho they're not on the menu and supposedly they're lovely from there!!

Answer 4

1

Answer 5

whats a parmo --and why would a teesider want to eat one

Answer 6

sure why not it is nonetheless red meat. in case you eat red meat ordinarily it is stupid to assert you would eat a very grown cow yet not a calf. that completely grown cow has emotions to boot you imagine it is alright to eat the full develop cow yet not it is toddler? almost a similar shet.