The Recipe
Creamy Rosemary Chicken Marsala
1-2 lbs Chicken, cooked to your preference (See the bullshit for how I cook mine)
8oz Fresh Pasta
8oz Mushrooms
2-3 Sprigs Rosemary
Small bunch Italian Parsley (about a handful minced)
3-4 Cloves Garlic
1/2 Cup Marsala Wine
1/2 Cup Heavy Cream
1/2 oz Parmesan Cheese (or really as much as you want, can’t have too much Parmesan)
Cook your chicken however you like: breaded, not breaded, skin on, skin off, thigh, breast, whatever (I’ll go through how I prepare/cook my chicken below). Keep it warm, you’re going to slice it up over your pasta at the end.
Start boiling some water for the pasta.
Wipe mushrooms with a wet paper towel to clean, remove stems, thinly slice.
Mince Garlic, Rosemary, and Parsley.
In a large pan, warm olive oil and sautee mushrooms over medium high heat until soft (5-10 minutes, though its hard to overcook the mushrooms here)
After mushrooms are cooked to your liking, add the garlic and rosemary. Sautee for another 3-5 minutes.
Throw your pasta in the pot, and cook until done, then drain. Remember to keep pasta water when draining!
Add the Marsala wine, scrape up any brown bits, and continue to cook for another 3-5 minutes, until the marsala has reduced.
Add heavy cream, parsley, and grate your parmesan cheese into the sauce.
Cook for another minute, then remove from heat.
Add pasta and mix, adding pasta water if things get a little dry.
Top with sliced chicken.
The Bullshit
The sauce here is the base of a few different dishes I make, and its so good for how easy it is. Once you get the basics of just throwing some garlic and rosemary in some butter or oil, then adding milk or cream to make a super fast white sauce, you can look smooth as hell and impress everyone. Maybe even start a blog that a handful of people read.
Remove the mushrooms and marsala, use butter instead of oil, add flour, and breakfast sausage, you have my breakfast gravy recipe.
Remove the rosemary and add more garlic, butter, cheese and some white wine, you’ve got an easy seafood pasta sauce.
You get the drift.
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Onto the chicken.
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The secret to making better boneless, skinless chicken is to dry brine it. It’s super simple, but takes planning. Get a wire rack and a sheet pan if you don’t have one in your kitchen already. I’ll wait here.
Now that you’ve got your rack, the night before you want to cook (here’s the planning part), pat that chicken dry, season with kosher salt on both sides, and place on the wire rack. Put it in the fridge, uncovered, overnight. Sorry I forgot to mention part of the planning is having fridge space. Once you start doing this regularly (works for steaks and roasts too) you’re going to want to buy dedicated meat fridge anyway, so use that.
When you’re ready to cook, take the chicken out of the fridge, rub olive oil all over it and season how you like. You’re going to notice the firmer texture of the meat, and its going to give you a much better sear, and better flavor. I prefer cast iron if it’s rainy out, or grilling it.
Just always make your chicken like this so boneless skinless chicken doesn’t completely suck.