Nellie Sold Her House To Us: Chicken Marsala #2

The best Chicken Marsala I have ever had, is made at Capellini's Restaurant in Tewksbury, MA. I have never been able to duplicate it at home, much to my dismay. Quite some time ago, my friend D gave me a recipe she uses, which was really delicious. I wish I had blogged it when I made it, but that was my pre-blogging days. I will call that Chicken Marsala #1. It really was delicious, but not quite the same consistency as the one at Capellini's. So since I have the time, and the inclination, I am going to make Chicken Marsala over and over, until I am transformed to another place, at another time. Capellini's in Tewksbury. Wish me luck!

Well you weren't wishing hard enough. This chicken Marsala was only okay, and definitely nothing to write home about. I shall call it Chicken Marsala #2. I am going to just quickly go over it, and point out where I think the biggest problem lay. No exact instructions today, because I really don't want you to try this at home. Because it was (picture me shrugging my shoulders) only okay.

You start with all the basic ingredients.

I used regular sized chicken breasts, and cut them in half horizontally. Then I pounded them between plastic wrap just until they were just about 1/4 inch thick.

Add EVOO and 1 tablespoon of butter to a preheated pan. Then add 3 cloves of garlic, smashed, and saute those until they are golden brown, and remove. They have now fulfilled their garlic destiny.

Add the chicken, which has been seasoned with kosher salt.

Remove to a plate when they are golden brown on both sides.

Cover with a little foil to keep them warm.

Add the mushrooms to the pan, and cook until they are tender.

Now here is where I think the recipe went awry. It called for 6 tablespoons of flour. To only 4 cups of liquid. 1 cup Marsala and 1 cup beef broth. When I read it, I thought it seemed like a lot of flour, but I was determined to follow the recipe, to see what happens.

Add the flour and cooked it for about 1 minute with the mushrooms. This is to remove the taste of the flour.

Then add the Marsala sauce, and deglaze the pan.

Then add the beef broth.

Cook until the flavors are blended a little.

In the meantime I added angel hair pasta to boiling salted water.

When the sauce is heated up, add the chicken back in, with any juices that may have collected on the plate.

The sauce will quickly thicken. I am partial to a thinner sauce, so the amount of flour that is called for here, is not to my liking.

Add the cooked pasta to the pan. At this point I changed things up a bit. After all, we were having this for dinner. I reserved about a cup of the starchy pasta water and added that to the pan. It loosened the sauce up a little.

It still was not the consistency I like. In the recipe that D gave me, you just dredge the chicken in a flour mixture, and that is all the flour you use. I think that would have been key here.

We were both non-plussed with this dish.