Chicken Marsala with Penne Rigate

| By: Seth Eisenstein|

With origins in Sicily and French influence, Chicken Marsala has become a beloved Italian-American dish. From the first taste of its tender mushrooms and rich, flavorful sauce, Chicken Marsala will delight your mind, body, and soul. The delicious Marsala sauce provides an exquisite, unique flavor unlike anything you’ve sampled before. And penne rigate – a reminder of the dish’s Italian origins – is the ideal pairing, intended to help you soak up and savor the Marsala sauce. Once you try delicious Chicken Marsala, you won’t soon forget it.

Ingredients

Yield: 3-4 servings

Prep time: 30-45 minutes

Cooking time: 30 minutes

• 1½ lbs boneless skinless chicken breast, sliced lengthwise and pounded to ¼ inch thick

• 1 lb penne rigate

• ¾ t salt, ¼ t pepper (can use more if desired)

• 3 T all-purpose flour

• 3 T canola oil

• 4 T unsalted margarine (kosher pareve), divided

• 4 T shallots, finely diced

• 2 cloves garlic, minced

• 10 oz button mushrooms, sliced

• ¾ cup medium dry or dry Marsala wine

• 1 cup chicken stock/broth (homemade or boxed)

• Italian parsley for garnish

Cooking Instructions

1. Gather, measure, and prepare all ingredients.

2. Cut chicken horizontally lengthwise and pound chicken to approximately ¼ inch thick.

3. Mix flour, salt, and pepper in a Ziploc bag. Add chicken, 1 piece at a time, into the bag to coat.

4. Add canola oil to a heavy-bottomed sauté pan and heat on medium-high.

5. When the pan becomes very hot, add the chicken to the pan and cook the chicken until both sides are golden brown (cook chicken approximately 4-5 minutes per side, depending on thickness). Do not overcrowd the pan with chicken. If needed, you can cook the chicken in batches.

6. Take out the chicken from the pan and place it on a plate lined with paper towels. Pour out canola oil from the pan and wipe the pan clean.

7. Bring a pot of water to boil. Add penne rigate and cook according to instructions on the package.

8. While pasta is cooking, add 3 tablespoons of unsalted margarine to the clean sauté pan on medium-high heat.

9. After the margarine melts and begins to sizzle, add the shallots to the pan and sauté for one minute. Then add the garlic to the pan. Reduce heat to medium and cook for a few minutes until the vegetables caramelize.

10. Add mushrooms to the pan and cook on high heat until mushrooms caramelize. If desired, add some salt and pepper.

11. Add the Marsala wine to the pan and cook on high heat until it reaches a boil. Then reduce heat to medium and reduce liquid by half.

12. Add in stock/broth, and cook for about three minutes until the sauce thickens.

13. Remove the pan from heat. Whisk in 1 tablespoon of margarine.

14. Add chicken back into the pan with the sauce and warm it for about 1 minute.

15. Serve the chicken over the penne rigate and garnish with Italian parsley. Enjoy!

Notes

• Recipe, with modifications, from https://vinepair.com/articles/best-chicken-marsala-recipe-wine/. I also consulted a few other recipes for additional suggestions and to compare ingredient amounts.

• Chicken Marsala can be served in a variety of different ways. According to the owner of a local authentic Italian restaurant, the dish can be served with vegetables, pasta, or polenta. When serving Chicken Marsala with pasta (covered with the Marsala sauce), he suggests a short, ridged pasta such as penne or rigatoni as those pastas blend well with and retain the Marsala sauce. (Some Italian restaurants where I have dined serve spaghetti or linguine with Marsala dishes, but it is served as a side dish with a different sauce, often a marinara sauce).

• My family observes the Jewish dietary guidelines of keeping kosher in our home. One of the main elements of keeping kosher involves not mixing meat and dairy products in the same meal. To make the recipe kosher, we used kosher chicken and substituted pareve margarine for butter (pareve margarine does not have any dairy in it).

• Since my family prefers a lot of mushrooms in Marsala dishes, we used 10 oz of mushrooms – more than the 8 oz called for in the original recipe. In the future, I would likely use more than 10 oz of mushrooms.

• This recipe calls for ¾ cup of Marsala wine. However, for more sauce, I would recommend using a greater amount of Marsala wine and adjusting other ingredients accordingly.

• To save time, we used boxed chicken stock/broth rather than homemade. We also used pre-minced garlic from a bottle instead of mincing fresh garlic ourselves.