mcsouls' Chicken Marsala the hard way
1 lb boneless chicken breast butterflied, pounded thin, light garlic salt, and dredged in flour.
1 shallot chopped up fine
12 oz of sliced baby bella mushrooms ( 2 packs pre-sliced)
1 tsp of mixed Italian herbs
1/4 tsp rubbed sage
1/4 tsp basil
1/4 tsp white pepper
1/2 tsp minced garlic (1 small clove)
1 tsp garlic salt
1/2 tsp cracked black pepper
2 cans of chicken broth
4 tbsp olive oil
4 tbsp room temp butter
2 tsp flour
1/2 cup Marsala wine from the wine isle
1/8 cup dry vermouth
Add 2 tbsp of olive oil to large (cannot be non-stick) sauce pan, use a 13" stainless steel one with 3" side walls. The pan has to be hot 6/10 on my large gas burner.
Saute half the breasts, 2-3 min on each side. They should be brown, and more importantly, there needs to be some sticking to the ban and flour falling off. the chicken should just be allowed to get golden brown. Put the first half on a side plate and cook the other half the same way add a little more olive oil if needed. The pan should have a few areas where small amounts of chicken stuck to it and some fallen off flour. Those bits can be allowed to get very brown, but do not burn them to black and smoke. Finish up the second half of the chicken and stack it on the side plate. Don't worry if you think it's not as cooked as you would normally cook chicken (though it probably is cooked fine right now if it's thin) your putting back in later.
Add 2 tbsp of olive oil and the mushrooms to the pan. Saute and stir frequently for 5 minutes, then make an empty circle in the middle of the pan and add the chopped shallot to the hole add a little olive oil if needed, let the shallot sit in the middle on the pan for 4 minutes or so until translucent and some are slightly browning. Stir it all up and add all the Italian seasoning, black and white pepper, garlic salt, basil and sage. You should add half of the herbs/spices from my recipe and cook it a minute then just taste it, if you want you can put the rest in or even add more of something. Now do the circle trick with the garlic, it only needs to sit 1 minute, it does not need to brown, stir it up. Cook another 5-10 minutes stirring frequently until everything looks nice and mushy. Things should be starting to get a little dried out and hot in empty areas of the pan.
Your ready for the wine. Put in the half a cup of Marsala wine, hopefully it bubbles up a lot. You should be able to rub all the bits off the bottom of the pan with a wooden spoon and mix it up. Let cook and stir frequently, it should take less than 10 minutes to reduce to a very thick and bubbly sauce with dry areas of the pan again. Add the vermouth, let it reduce the same way to a thick bubbly pasty sauce. Now add 1 can of chicken broth and mix it up well scrapping the bottom and sides with the spoon. This has to reduce almost to as thick and bubbly as the wine did, it may take 10-15 minutes, stir frequently, you have to keep an eye on it.
Take your 2 tbsp of butter and 2 tsp of flour and mix them to where they resemble white drying wet cement, no more powder from the flour. Take the other 2 tbsp of butter and drop it into the sauce and stir it in gently. Now add the second can of chicken broth and half your cement mix (stir it in good and even). It should be pretty liquidy, but that's okay. Put all your chicken back in the pan, getting it under the sauce as much as possible. Get it all boiling again, It should take less than 8 minutes for the sauce to start to thicken up into a nice constancy. Keep running your wood spoon along the bottom under the pieces of chicken to prevent sticking. When you look at the pan after running the spoon along the bottom, the sauce should very slowly flow back over the bare pan. It's done, take it off the heat, there should be lots of sauce. The extra cement was in case it never thickens, but it should have, so just toss it. Serve with rice or pasta.
