We're gonna make chicken cutlets Marsala
with a little side of pasta.
The trick to my chicken Marsala
is to use a combination of dried mushrooms
and fresh mushrooms.
We use them so that we get the benefit of a flavored stock.
So I put these down into some chicken broth
and let them reconstitute then they bloom in there
and the entire pan of broth tastes like porcini mushrooms.
In the pan here, we're browning mushrooms
in a combination of olive oil and butter
or just start the mushrooms with all olive oil.
We're gonna add butter to the sauce later as well.
So we have these guys working.
Once the mushrooms brown,
we're going to brown our chicken in the same pan.
Now, for the chicken,
you put your hand on top of the chicken,
I've already done this one
and with your sharp kitchen knife,
you work across but not all the way through
and you open it up like a heart, okay?
You'll end up with larger cutlets
that require much less pounding and when we pound,
we don't really pound.
It's more of a drag, okay?
It's down even strokes pushing away from your body
or towards your body gently and evenly
until you get to your desired thickness, okay, like that.
This is the color you want the mushrooms
before you ever touch them with salt and pepper.
When they get that dark meaty aroma
and that deep dark brown color, get them out of the pan,
drop the chicken after you dredge it in flour
so we turned our chicken breast in flour
with the salt and the pepper
then you put more olive oil in the pan
and cook the chicken, right?
Now we're going to pull our cutlets out,
our golden brown cutlets out
and tent them with a little foil
to keep them warm for a couple of minutes
and we'll quickly just build our sauce in the pan,
our Marsala sauce.
I'm gonna let that butter melt a sec.
My porcini stock is ready.
See the color?
That was just regular chicken stock.
It gets this color
from the mushrooms cooking out in it, okay?
I chopped up the porcini that was reconstituted
and we're gonna add to our melted butter
and our chicken drippings shallots,
garlic and lots of finely chopped fresh rosemary.
Okay.
Give that a little swirl.
Season it up with a little salt and pepper.
Always season every layer of your food as you're cooking
and now the best part, the Marsala, the fortified wine.
Once you open Marsala, keep it in the fridge.
Okay.
And then we're going to add in
all of those beautiful porcinis.
Mm.
This is intoxicating.
This smells so sexy good.
Dang.
I gotta make this for John this weekend.
Maybe it'll turn into a date night for me.
So we have heavily salted water here.
Last second when you're ready to serve,
the house smells great, this can be done ahead,
you just throw the chicken back into the sauce
to heat it through,
last second you're gonna drop your egg pasta
or whisk up your instant polenta.
The pasta, undercook it by one minute
'cause you're gonna have carryover cooking
is what it's called.
So if the package says three minutes or four minutes,
this is egg pasta so it's very quick cooking,
you're gonna wanna pull it at one minute shy of that
because we're going to add a little butter,
we're gonna add our sauce and I need some cheese.
Ooh, add that last little bit of broth.
Why waste that?
So we have our chicken ready to go.
We ladle some of our mushrooms and sauce
down over the top of that.
I know.
It's delicious.
I know, right?
That's a beast.
That's a sexy beast.
Yeah, come to mama.
Okay, then take all the rest of that beautiful sauce
and add it to our pasta
and then we add our cheese to the pasta.
Yes.
(applause)
And now we bring this right down here
and pile that pasta next to our chicken.
How good does that look?
(applause)