Chicken Marsala
There is a simple trick that you can do ahead of time to make life a little easier cooking during the week. Buy chicken cutlets*, place them between 2 sheets of plastic or parchment paper and pound to ¼” thickness. Stack them with parchment paper between each breast, freeze on a sheet pan separately then wrap in plastic and place the entire stack into a freezer bag. Now you can remove 1 or 2 or 4 when you get home from work and proceed with any recipe. The chicken breast (you can do this with pork tenderloin as well), will defrost almost immediately and you’ll have dinner on the table in ½ hour.
- 1/3 cup flour plus more for mushrooms
- Sea salt and pepper, to taste
- Olive oil
- 4 Chicken cutlets, pounded ¼” thick
- 1 tablespoon unsalted butter
- 6 ounces brown crimini mushrooms, sliced or quartered
- 1 ½ tablespoon minced shallot
- 2 teaspoons minced garlic
- 1⁄2 cup chicken stock
- 1⁄3 cup dry Marsala wine
- 1 tablespoon lemon juice
- 1 tablespoon lemon zest
- 1 tablespoon Italian flat leafed parsley, minced
Season the flour with sea salt and pepper and dredge the chicken in the flour shaking off the excess.
Heat the slow cooker to sauté if you can or use a skillet, add enough oil to coat the bottom of the pan and lightly brown the chicken on both sides. Set aside.
If needed add a little more oil to the pan, just enough to coat the bottom and add the butter, when melted sauté the mushrooms until browned. Add the shallots and cook until translucent, add the garlic and stir briefly until it’s aromatic.
To finish on stove top:
Sprinkle the mushroom mixture with a little flour and cook, stirring until flour is incorporated and browned. Whisk in the chicken stock, Marsala wine and lemon juice, reduce until slightly thickened. Add the chicken back to the mixture and cook for about 2 minutes. Serve with chopped parsley and lemon zest over the chicken breasts.
*If you want to buy chicken breasts or cut from a whole chicken just butterfly them before pounding.
