Prime Cuts

This week for Fresh Fridays we wanted to bring you a recipe that just about everyone loves, Chicken Marsala.  A common misconception is that it’s a hard recipe to prepare.  We both think a lot of that comes from the fact that the marsala sauce is homemade and sometimes making sauces from scratch can be daunting to some.  However, we promise that this recipe is simple and something you can whip at home with ease.  We’ve both spent years making marsala, especially Joe while he worked at his previous restaurant because they ran it as a special almost every weekend.

As always, we hope you try this out at home and enjoy with your friends or family!

Ingredients

1 large chicken breast
flour for dredging
1/4 cup chopped button mushrooms
1/4 cup sliced onion
1/4 cup Marsala wine
1/3 cup heavy creme
2 tbsp butter
salt and pepper to taste
vegetable oil

Linguini or fettuccini to serve over

Preparation

• Begin by  cutting the chicken breast in half butterfly style.
• Pound the two halves of chicken to create a uniform thickness.
• Dredge the chicken lightly in flour seasoned with salt and pepper, shake of excess.
• In a LARGE saute pan melt butter with a little bit of veg oil.
• Saute chicken till golden brown on both sides and slightly crisp on the edges but not yet fully cooked.
• Remove chicken from pan and set aside, add mushrooms, and saute for 3-4 minutes till they begin to soften.
• Add onions and saute till soft.
• Add Marsala wine to pan, and stand back as the alcohol will ignite, when the flame subsides, scrape pan with a wooden spoon to deglaze and mix all cooking bits into the sauce, these will flavor and thicken the final sauce.
• Reduce this down to a syrupy consistency with a rich brown color.
• Add heavy creme to pan, and reserved chicken breasts, reduce till the sauce has a light brown color and is thickened considerably, approximately 5-6 minutes.
• Check for taste and season with salt and pepper, serve over pasta,  Fresh fettuccini is my favorite for this, but many types work well with this sauce.

Remember this dish will only be as good as the Marsala wine you use to cook it with, so rather than buying a huge cheap bottle, try and find a small bottle of something decent.  If you tell your wine salesman that you are looking for wine for the purpose of cooking they will usually have a few bottles that are suited for just that purpose.

Enjoy!

You can download a PDF version of this Chicken Marsala Recipe.

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Photo by: Sea-turtle