Chicken marsala is a classic Italian restaurant dish. Pound some chicken flat, flour it up, fry it up with some mushrooms and douse it with marsala wine. Not bad. Not great. And more work than it’s worth. Why not do away with the scaloppine? Go in a more rustic, hearty direction? Bring it into cacciatora territory? I bet that’s where chicken marsala comes from anyway. Italian home cooking five hundred years ago. I say let’s go back.

This is a family style dish but all the elements are the same. Dust the chicken in flour. Sauté the chicken to brown it. Use the rendered chicken fat to fry up the mushrooms. Roast the chicken to finish cooking it. Deglaze with marsala wine. Add some stock and a bit of balsamic vinegar. Serve the chicken over the mushrooms. I don’t think you even need to serve it with sides. Maybe a bit of polenta but nothing more. Simple, rustic, delicious.

Rustic chicken marsala. Less fuss and more flavour. - 1 Rustic chicken marsala. Less fuss and more flavour. - 2 Rustic chicken marsala. Less fuss and more flavour. - 3 Rustic chicken marsala. Less fuss and more flavour. - 4

chicken marsala

Ingredients

  • 8 chicken thighs - bone-in, skin-on
  • 1 lb mushrooms quartered
  • 2 Tbsp oil
  • 1 cup chicken stock
  • 1/2 cup marsala wine
  • 1 Tbsp balsamic vinegar
  • 1 sprig thyme
  • 2 Tbsp butter

Instructions

  • Pre-heat the oven to 375F.
  • Quarter the mushrooms.
  • In a small sauce pan, reduce the stock by half. This will save time and help keep the chicken hot later on.
  • Season the chicken with salt and pepper. Dust the chicken with flour.
  • Heat a large skillet over medium heat.
  • Film the pan with olive oil.
  • Place the chicken thighs in the pan, skin side down and saute for about 5 minutes, until golden on the skin side. Be careful not to burn the flour.
  • Remove the chicken and set aside.
  • Saute the mushrooms in the same skillet, using the oil in the pan.
  • Season the mushrooms and remove them from the skillet.
  • Return chicken and accumulated juices to the skillet. Nestle the thyme sprig between the thighs and place in the oven.
  • Roast until the chicken reaches an internal temperature of 165F.
  • Remove the chicken from the pan and deglaze with the marsala wine, scraping up any fond in the pan.
  • Add the stock and reduce slightly. Add the balsamic vinegar and cook a couple minutes more.
  • Return the mushrooms and mushroom liquor to the pan. Simmer until the mushrooms are heated through.
  • Off heat, stir in the butter, one tablespoon at a time.
  • To serve, place mushrooms on the plate. Place two chicken thighs overtop the mushrooms and drizzle the sauce around the chicken.

If you want to get the results a restaurant gets you need to use the ingredients they do. Demi-glace is one of those ingredients. It’s a flavour bomb.

Pan-frying steaks? Slip a bit in to take the sauce over the top. Prime rib roast dinner? A bit of demi-glace is killer.

Roasting a chicken? Drizzle a bit onto the plate after you pour the jus. It’s one of those truly great ingredients.

Traditional demi-glace worth it if you want to go the distance

Traditional demi-glace is serious, serious business. This recipe is demanding but the real thing – that’s a labour of love.

The famous French chef Auguste Escoffier captures it in his Guide to Modern Cookery (Le Guide Culinaire). That book is over 100 years old and still there’s not a better version of this sauce.

French demi glace makes just about any meat dish it's used with spectacular. Use it wisely - it's a flavour grenade. - 5

His version goes like this. Roast off veal bones. Simmer for about 12-16 hours to make brown stock. Take some of the brown stock and reduce it until you literally have a glaze.

Take more of it and make a sauce espagnole. That takes 4 or 5 hours. Then combine still more brown stock, the veal glaze, the sauce espagnole and some Madeira wine and reduce that to about 2 cups.

2 cups of nuclear powered flavour. Blow your mind flavour. I’ve done it a few times. My way isn’t as good – nothing comes for free – but it’s reasonably close and it’s way easier.

This version is way easier and almost as good

Roast some veal bones and aromatics. Add some tomato paste, cover with water and simmer for about a day. You can walk away while this happens.

Check it every now and then to add a bit of water. Skim it as needed. You can sleep while this happens. It’s not hard. Just takes time. Remove the bones and strain.

Cool it down. Skim any fat and then reduce. And reduce. Down to a few cups. Freeze it in an ice cube tray.

Now you have flavour bombs ready to fire. Might not be quite as good as Escoffier’s version. But maybe you’ll actually make this demi-glace.

French demi glace makes just about any meat dish it's used with spectacular. Use it wisely - it's a flavour grenade. - 6 French demi glace makes just about any meat dish it's used with spectacular. Use it wisely - it's a flavour grenade. - 7