Chicken Marsala

  

  

    
What is the difference between Messina and McNuggets?  Syracusa and Special Sauce?  Palermo and, well, you get the idea.  Find yourself sailing near McDonalds?  Chart a course for Marsala, Sicily that is.  The other night, I prepared breaded chicken cutlets for my kids.  Dredged in flour, egg and bread crumbs, these home made "nuggets" fill their need with little more than a dollop of ketchup to top it off.  I, of course, have deeper needs.  I have a need to feel the ocean air in my face.  I need to have the sun so bright that even wearing sunglasses makes me squint.  I need old men on park benches, old ruins on hillsides, and old recipes made with the newest, freshest, most basic ingredients.  I need new fish caught from old seas.  I need new discoveries in old towns, towns so old that the list of conquerers is too long to read.  
    
Sicily fits this description.  I have never been to Sicily, but will go some day.  And until that day, I will eat in Sicily, or at least my transient idea of Sicily, until I experience the real thing.  I admit, that cooking with Marsala wine may be more of an American thing.  Sicilians, I believe, serve their fortified wine, the good stuff I'm talking about, not the swill you buy at the supermarket, as an aperitif between first and second courses.  Like a Port, it goes well with cheese.  Here in America, land of the lowest common denominator, our mass-produced Marsala is not good for much more than cooking.  But that is ok, because it gives us another way to transform everyday chicken cutlets into something more interesting, something more special, something named after a town in Sicily.  Soften some shallots, brown some mushrooms, reduce some Marsala and some chicken stock and voila! Another evening where I am that much closer to being in Sicily.  Serves 2.
    
Ingredients:
2 tbsp olive oil
3 tbsp butter
2 skinless, boneless chicken breasts
salt/pepper
1/2 cup flour
2 eggs, beaten
1/2 cup bread crumbs
1 shallot, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 small can of sliced mushrooms
1/2 cup Marsala wine
3/4 cup chicken stock
1/2 tsp dried rosemary
     
Directions:
Heat the oven to 200 degrees F.  In a large skillet, heat 1 tbsp of oil and 1 tbsp of butter over medium-high heat.  Rinse and pat dry the chicken breasts.  Cut them in half lengthwise to make to thin, flat cutlets.  Pound flat if desired to make the cutlets a uniform thin thickness.  Season each with salt and pepper.  Lay out the flour, eggs and bread crumbs in their own plate or bowl.  Dredge a cutlet through the flour, shaking off excess, then the egg, then the bread crumbs, and place in the hot skillet.  Do the same with a second cutlet.  Cook the cutlets for 2 minutes to brown and then turn the cutlets and repeat.  Remove the cutlets to a plate with a paper towel and keep warm in the preheated oven.  Wipe out the pan and heat another tbsp each of oil and butter.  Repeat the cutlet cooking process.  When the second batch of cutlets is removed, add the shallots to the pan and soften for a minute or two.  Add the garlic to release it flavor and then add the mushrooms.  Stir and cook a few minutes to release their liquid and brown slightly.  Add the Marsala wine and deglaze the pan, scraping up any bits.  Simmer and reduce the wine by half and then add the stock and rosemary.  Simmer and reduce the sauce by half or more.  Season to taste.  Turn off the heat and add the last tbsp of butter.  Stir in the butter and then place the cutlets in the skillet, coating with the sauce.  Plate the cutlets and then spoon out the sauce on top of the cutlets.  Serve.