Chicken Marsala

Submitted by Jpfan01

I love Chicken Marsala. I had it a couple times at a local Italian restaurant and decided I could do it myself. The only thing I was never really fond of in the recipe was how thick and syrup like the sauce was. My recipe isn't that way, but I added a section at the end to show you how to achieve that result if you really want it. To each their own. Either way this is a recipe I was surprised was not on GWS yet so I figured I would share my version.

Ingredients

• Chicken breast
• 1/2 Cup Sherry
• 1/3 cup Sliced/Chopped Onions
• 3/4 Cup Marsala
• 1/4 Cup Beef Stock
• 2 Tablespoons Garlic Powder
• 2-3 Cloves of Garlic diced.
• 1/2 teaspoon of Salt (Salt to your taste though.)
• 1-2 Tablespoons of Pepper (Again to your taste.)
• 1 and 1/2 Tablespoons Red Wine Vinegar
• 1/2 Tablespoon Lemon
• 1 Tablespoon Worcestershire Sauce.
• 2 tablespoons of Butter.
• 1/2 Tablespoon Sugar
• Splash of Whipping Cream
• Ground up parsley or parsley flakes.

Method

• Ok First thing. THAW THE CHICKEN. Let it thaw while you do everything else or you will be really annoyed waiting for it to thaw. Just toss the breast in a big steel bowl and let it sit. I'm only using one chicken breast while I took the pictures but you can do two without having to change anything in the recipe at all.

• Take some oil and throw it in your pan with 1 tablespoon of butter, the diced up garlic cloves, and heat it up so it's sizzling.

• Next we need to make the mixture were going to coat the chicken with. Mix the garlic powder, flour, and pepper together into a mixture like so:

• This would also be a good time to throw the penne into the boiling water as well. 12 ounces is more than enough noodles for two very full plates.

• After dipping the chicken into the powder and coating it well throw it into the pan with the oil and butter. Keep the mixture don't throw it out.

• You want to brown both sides lightly. Depending on the thickness the times may very but if the slices are 1/2-1 inch thick 4-5 minutes on each side should be enough to brown both sides and cook the chicken through thoroughly. After they are cooked set them aside on a paper towel or on a plate.

• You don't want to clean the pan out though. You want to leave all the browned pieces of butter, oil, mixture, and garlic in the pan.

• At this point the penne noodles should also be about done. I cook mine Al Dente, so they are firm but not hard. It takes a little practice to get the texture just right.

• Pour the 1/2 cup of sherry into the pan with the browned left overs. Also add the chopped onions.

• Pour 3/4 cup of the Marsala Wine into the pan as well. I use generic Marsala wine. If you want to go buy fancy stuff be my guest. I don't think it's necessary to buy super fancy stuff for a recipe to turn out well.

• Add the 1/4 cup beef stock

• Add the 1 and 1/2 Tablespoons Red Wine Vinegar.

• Add the 1/2 Tablespoon of Lemon.

• Add the 1 Tablespoon Worcestershire Sauce.

• Add the 1/2 Tablespoon Sugar.

• Add salt and pepper to taste and mix it up real well. Now you're going to have to let this reduce for a few minutes. If you don't let it reduce it you will notice the alcohol taste in the meal and it's disgusting.

• After you have let the marsala reduce and a splash of whipping cream, no more than a tablespoon at most.

• Once the mixture is heated up real well and reduced you are going to add the chicken breast back in and let them simmer for about a minute on each side in the mixture. This will let them absorb the flavor. Once that's done take them out and place them on a plate.

• Now we need to thicken up the sauce a little bit. Remember that mixture I told you to keep? Sprinkle about a tablespoon or two of it and mix it into the mixture so it will thicken a tiny bit.

• Drop the noodles that you strained into the mixture and mix it under high heat for a couple minutes to heat them up real well.

• If you notice I'm cooking in a wok. I cheat. I cook a lot of things in a wok so I don't mix it when I can toss it!

• Once the mixture has heated up it will also be a little thicker and you want to make sure the noodles are coated real well before you take them out. They should look like this:

• Toss the now finished noodles onto the plate with the chicken. It looks good, but it's kind of bland. It needs a little color.

• Take the crushed up parsly or you can use flakes. It's not going to make a difference if you use the flakes, but some people are just stuck up. It's a garnish more than anything. It adds a little color to a very neutral colored dish. It just looks better and more appetizing.

Thick Sauce

If you want to have that real thick almost syrup type sauce you only have to do one thing to the sauce at the point where you would normally be letting it simmer to reduce itself. All you need to do is add a Demi-glace to it. You can buy premade Demi-glace or you can make it yourself by combining equal parts of beef and espagnole. If you want to go even one step further than that espagnole is fat and wheat flour diluted with beef stock.