♪ Making it big, making it big ♪ Alvin's gonna make it at big, big, big. (cheerful brass music) - Hello, welcome back to
Tasty's "Making It Big," the show where I make large versions of some of America's most beloved foods. Today, we are gonna be
making giant chicken Parm. My good friend, Andrew Rea from Babish Culinary Universe actually sent in this
video with a challenge. Check it out. - Hey, Alvin, Andrew Rea here
from "Binging with Babish," and I want to tell you a little bit about chicken Parmesan. It was invented in 19 (mumbles) and popularized by (mumbles), and I love it. It's my go-to hangover dish. It's my death-row meal. It is my meal probably tonight from talking about it so much. What makes a chicken Parm good? Well, I've learned over the years that you need crisp, you need cheesy, you need saucy, you need chickeny, and you need a little bit of sog. I don't understand chicken Parmesan. I just appreciate it. I would appreciate it if you were to create a larger version of a normal chicken Parmesan. Normally, it's still pretty big portions, but if you were to make it big, make it big. (laughs) - All right, thank you, Andrew, for those kind words and
the invigorating challenge. We're gonna start hammering some chicken. So we have a lot of chicken breasts here, plastic wrap, chicken breasts,
weapon of obliteration. Here we go. This is oddly therapeutic. And because this is gonna
be a large chicken Parm, I don't want to pound it out too thin or else the structural integrity of it may do that. So we're gonna start
with that for now, one. This is great if you just failed a test or you had like a bad breakup,
bad customer service call, but your internet is down and you have nothing to do at home. Just make some chicken Parm (laughs) and everything will be okay. With the help of the
wonderful culinary team, we have 10 pounded chicken breasts. Thank you for them for
saving my arms and my hands. And now we play a little
bit of chicken Tetris. So the goal of this game,
'cause I like games, is to get one large
chicken with 10 pieces, and we're just gonna
build and see what we get. More edges equals more fun, trying to overlap the thinner
sides with the thicker ones, so that way, everything
just kinda stays together. Can't do this in Tetris, but you gotta move the
blocks around to cheat it These two are gonna be my glue. Spike side is gonna help, hopefully, the chicken stick to each other. Trying to use these almost
as indentations for nails. Well, during this aggressive
meat physical session, we created some holes, which we do need to patch up, so we're gonna use these as our backup, probably one over here, and away we go. All right, this is the end of the massage. You gotta smooth things out. We gave it the beating, now we gotta make sure
everybody's feeling all right. Okay, it's quite large form. That's pretty cool. All right, time to get
this onto a circular tray and into the freezer so we can fry this whole thing. We have one large chicken
pizza ready for the freezer. So chicken Parmesan, one of the great things about it is that you get to enjoy crispy chicken with cheese and sauce. So we're gonna make our
version of a tomato sauce. Garlic, onion, red chili flakes. Ooh, it smell real nice. This is gonna take a little bit to cook, so we'll be right back. ♪ Doo, doon, doon, doon, doon, doon ♪ Okay, so now onions, garlic, pepper, nice and sweaty. Now we got tomato paste
in, smush that down. Oh, that smells strong. That is a lot of tomato paste. So tomato paste, cooking
off some of that rawness. We're gonna continue
with the tomato sauce. This is about 50 tomatoes
in this pot right now. Good job, Alvin, first spill of the day. That's fine, I'm used to it by now. Now we stir. This should cook for quite a while. It's a nice simmer, all the flavors going. Oregano, I wanna do half now. I'm gonna tear. I love the smell of basil, smells so good. All right, so this is gonna
hang out for quite some time, let all the flavors
get to know each other. And then, we are going to
cook some very large pasta. See you guys in the back. So we are in the back Tasty kitchen where we have a huge,
huge pot of boiling water elegantly prepared for
us by the culinary team. And we have approximately 2000 grams of pasta. Oh look, and there's Hip now with the wooden paddle, amazing. Thank you, sir, what a lifesaver. This will be our stirring
utensil for the day. Well, we've gotta salt the water. In goes the pasta. All right, we're trying to get it to maybe a couple minutes under done, 'cause it'll be finished in some sauce, then we'll be ready. What's that one song they sing in the Harry Potter potions? Isn't there like a chant? Oh. ♪ Trouble, trouble, doo, doo, doo ♪ I forgot the... ♪ Fire burning, cauldron bubble ♪ ♪ Trouble, ♪ I forgot the... ♪ Something wicked this why comes ♪ Woo! These noodles look really great, so we're gonna try one.
(cheerful brass music) Mm, oh that's good. That's done, we can take these out. There you go. God, that's so satisfying. It's like fishing for gold. There we go. Oh, that's hot, oh that's hot. I'm hot, woo. I'm gonna save some of the pasta water for the cooking. That should be good. All right, we're gonna
finish off the pasta now. Don't spill. I spilled. (sauce sizzling) Oh, that's cool. Largest scale pasta
finishing I've ever seen. Let's start with that, see where that gets us. Add a little bit of this pasta water, in you go, woo. Just like Andrew does in the video, some nice freshly grated Parm, basil, little touch of water. This tastes pretty good, but this will also make
it taste a lot better, two sticks of butter. Gives the pasta a nice sheen, nice flavor. I think it's what restaurants do to make their pasta taste really good. And if they do it, Andrew does it, I'm gonna do it too. Salt, I don't know why I smelled it. Little bit of seasoning. That is one
(pasta slurping) very interesting sound we have. The most important part
is to eat, to taste. This is done. I am gonna go finish up
the rest of the stuff now and try not to eat this whole entire thing 'cause it's pretty good. So we need to set up our breading station. Usually you have a
three-part breading station, flour, egg, breadcrumb. We still have a three-part
breading station. It is just now very large. So flour, (coughing) don't do that. Eggs, I'm lazy, so I'm gonna use technology
to make my life easier. ♪ Doo, doo, doo, doo ♪ (bleep) I spilled it. This is a massive breading station. And for the breadcrumb mix, seasoned regular bread crumbs, panko, 'cause panko is great, garlic and onion powder, basil and oregano. 'cause I'm gonna make a mess, we're gonna need more of this, and a good amount of Parm
inside the bread crumb itself. This is a very well-seasoned mixture. When you put all good stuff in there, you know it's gonna turn out good. I'm gonna get gloves. All right, we have our chicken pizza. So this has been freezing
for stability and rigidity. Flour, oh, this does not fit. It's all good. I might just chop off this part. Here in "Making It Big," we provide solutions and large food. Ta da, all better. All right, we got some flour. All right, woo, this is awesome. Also gotta dust off the excess, of course. Into the egg, woo-hoo, satisfying. Let's see if we can do it this way. That way I don't have to flip it. All right, let's make a little bed, straight in you go. Some pre-made mix from the culinary team,. helped me again with the assist. Appreciate it. Double coat, come on. This is like playing those marble games. That's one breaded chicken. Time to get this guy back in
the freezer before we fry. Just some extra on the bottom
in case it gets a little wet. To the freezer. We are about to fry this chicken. We have a large pot of oil, which is around 350 or so. This is very dangerous, but this is also the only way that we can fry this beautiful thing. Don't do this at home,
kids, just watch the video. And in we go. Slowly, ooh ooh, look at that. (oil sizzling) Oh, you hear that? The sound of good stuff. All right, we got a good
crust going on here. Everything's looking pretty, pretty good, so we are going to take it out, if I can, like this. Yeah, there we go. Woo, that's nice. Some of this, is this chicken
or cheese residue, outta here. We don't want none of that. And edges are nice and crispy, middle could use some work, so this is gonna go into the oven, just a little bit until it's ready. We have a large chicken
patty that has been fried, so this is the base for chicken Parmesan and, as per Andrew's video, I really like this idea he took. He puts basil on top of the chicken, and that way, I think it's really nice, because it gives it a nice perfume. This is that real farm to table. This is not farm to table, this is farm on my table. I really like where this is going. Smells so good. And next, probably one of the reasons why everybody likes eating
chicken Parmesan (laughs) is the cheese. So this is fresh mozzarella, boom, bam, bop, bada, bop, boom, pow. It's like a pizza, little more
cheese never hurt anybody. That's actually a lie. If you're lactose intolerant, you probably have felt
pain from all of this. And the namesake for the dish, Parmesan. All those times when
you're at the restaurants and the waiter says, "Hey,
would you like some Parmesan?" And you say, "Yes." They always never give you enough. But today, this is my show. This is my dish. I put as much Parmesan
on this thing as I want. And I'm not gonna say when. I don't tap out, we wouldn't do that here. Woo, my arm is tapping out,
though, (laughs) switch. Whew, one very stacked piece of chicken now needs to go into the
broiler or into a hot oven for one final transformation. Woo, all right.
(chicken sizzling) I'm coming off screen with
this coming out of the oven. Oh heck yeah. Chicken Parm, looking really good. Cheese is all bubbly, skin is crispy. You can still see the basil. I think this will be a great plate for the chicken Parm. Hey, pasta goes on first. Oh my god, serve that at a restaurant, it's like $200. Yeah, Carbone, where you at? Don't actually, I don't, nobody tag them. I want to go to that restaurant, so I haven't had it before, so I don't want them to get mad at me. That's like what? Normal serving size for Americans. This has been the most useful
tool we've had on this show, and it was designed as
just like a cookie tray. But now it has become a scooper,
a chopper, a bench scraper, jack of all trades. It's great cheese. So might as well just
use this cheese on it. Is this is what people feel like when they go to the strip club, and they just throw money. I haven't been to one, but I would like to try, just
for the experience of it. I'm making it rain on the pasta. Hi, Mom. (laughs) All right, a little bit of basil. Cheese is the only thing
I would probably let rain or make rain. All right, we're half done. Heck yeah, right on top you go, big dude. Woo, final touch, the sauce. I think it's a smart move
to put the sauce on top, not underneath, so that it's not as soggy. That's chicken Parm. Make it rain. Some final touches, there you have it. This is very heavy. (laughs) This is a quite large chicken Parm. I think it's time to eat. Oh, I need to send a
video to Andrew though. I want him to see. - Alvin, let's take a
look at what you did. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh,
oh, oh, ooh, ooh, ooh. Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh. I think it's big. I think you made it big. Alvin, you did me proud. You did me so proud. It looks unbelievable. It's huge. I love how you said that
both the sauce on top and the basil underneath
the cheese were my tips. Both of those are from
other places, (laughs) Carmela Soprano or America's Test Kitchen, two things that have never been said in the same sentence before. But the pasta looks amazing. The chicken Parmesan looks
huge, so mission accomplished. The name of the show is "Making It Large," (beep) "Making It Giant," (beep) "Making It Big." (laughs) Man, I really wish I could've
been there to eat that. It looks incredible. You did great. And now all you have to do
is just make it for me again when you come over next, okay? 'Cause I'll be hungry, I'll save room. Bye, Alvin. - Time to eat. I'll just get myself a
little serving of pasta here. You can make a normal portion, Just like a slice of pizza, oh, heck yeah. Yeah, look at that. Let's go in. Cheers. For some reason, I don't doubt that this
one is gonna taste good, but we'll see. Mm, I was right. This does taste good. Chicken is nice, pasta is nice. Everything is nice, you know, just a normal meal in America. This is pretty good. I wanna finish chewing. Well, there we go. I am gonna eat that for quite a long time, because it is quite delicious. I also have a lot of
crew, a lot of friends that I could feed that with, so I'm not concerned about
taking care of that chicken Parm. And maybe, I'll give some
to Andrew, who knows? But that was it, this is
the end of the season. Thank you, guys, for watching. Again, to watch me go through
a bunch of hoops and hurdles to try and make a lot of giant versions of some of the food
that we all like to eat. It's been a wild ride. Huge shout out to the
crew, the culinary team, the art team for making things like a giant Kit Kat wrapper, for the editing team that
is editing this episode that you are watching right now. But that's it for me. Thank you, guys, for watching and I'll see you later. Peace. (cheerful brass music)
