Chicken in Marsala Wine Sauce
Chicken in Marsala Wine Sauce or commonly just refer to as Chicken Marsala or Marsala Chicken. If you are just as confuse as I was when I initially heard about this dish, you are not alone. During my venture into food dishes of different cultures and ethnicity, i have taken a liking to the Indian cuisines and one of my favorite and I am sure many fans of Indian Cuisines favorites too, is the Chicken Tikka Masala aka Chicken Masala in shot. Some places call this dish Butter Chicken. Any without digressing further into the world of confusion, Chicken Marsala and Chicken Masala are completely different dishes. What a difference the letter “R” makes in this instance. This article we are referring to the dish make with the Marsala Wine with grapes grown in a region in Sicily.
Chicken in Marsala Wine Sauce is commonly served with pasta. It has a rich creamy sauce enhanced by the Marsala wine flavor. It is pretty easy to make just like any other white wine cream sauce dishes. In many recipes, the chicken used are the breast and usually served whole. The recipe, i am using is adapted from the New School of Cooking. Instead of chicken breasts, I decided to use chicken thighs. Why? Because, i happen to have a few packs of boneless thighs that I need to find a used for. The thought of using the thighs to make a Coconut Cream Chicken Masala dish did cross my mind. But, the wife has the finally say in it. You know the story, women are always right!
Ingredients:
- 2-3 lbs of chicken meats (breast or dark meat)
- 2 cups of chicken stocks
- 4 Tablespoons of finely chopped shallots (Use less if you don’t like onions)
- 5 Tablespoons of unsalted butter
- 16 oz of mushroom (I used bello and white – more if you like mushroom)
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
- 1 cup all purpose flour
- 3/4 cup + 2 Tablespoon marsala wine
- 1 cup heavy cream
- 1 teaspoon lemon juice
Preparation Steps:
- Slice the mushroom into thin slices, set aside.
- Peel the shallot and cut into even sizes before putting into the food processor. You can hand cut and minced the shallot if you like.
- Cook the shallot in about 3 Tablespoon of butter, add about 1/2 teaspoon of salt, stirring often until the shallots turn translucent and a little brown, add the mushroom. The mushroom will first absorb all the oil in the pan. This is fine, stir fry the mushroom until they eventually soften, turn darker color and the fluid that the mushroom releases is almost dry up.
- In a separate pot, bring the stock to a boil and boil uncovered till it reduces to almost half.
- Remove the mushroom to a bowl.
- For the chicken, I use boneless and skinless chicken thigh meat. If you use chicken breast, you will need to pound the chicken to about 1/4 inch thickness. Pat dry the chicken and season with salt and pepper. For me I lightly sprinkle the salt over the chicken.
- Next dredge the chicken in flour, shake to remove excess flour. Assemble them in a tray.
- Heat about 1 Tablespoon of butter and 1 Tablespoon of oil in a pan and fry part of the chicken. Depending on the size of your pan or skillet, you may need to do it in several batches. The key is not to over-crowd the pan.
- Put the fried chicken aside, and using the same pan, add the 3/4 cup of marsala wine into the pan off heat, and then bring it back to boil. Stir and scrape the brown bits from the pan for about 1/2 a minute. Add the reduced stock, cream and mushroom and simmer for about 8-10 minutes or until the sauce thickens.
- Add the lemon juice and the 2 Tablespoon wine.
- Serve this with the chicken over pasta.
Variation:
I preferred to cut the fried chicken into strip and during step #9 above, during simmering, add the chicken strips back to the sauce and let the chicken absorb the sauce flavoring and at the same time let the chicken infuse its flavor back to the sauce. Also during this step, you should be adding salt if needed.
