Savvy Entertaining

Chicken Marsala with Browned Butter Sauce

Hubby and I stumbled across a restaurant chain called The Old Spaghetti Factory years ago. Whenever we travel to a corner of the world where there is one, we enjoy eating there. My favorite thing on their menu is their Chicken Marsala. It is served with this luscious browned butter sauce and topped with Myzithra cheese.

I finally found a Chicken Marsala recipe with the browned butter sauce that tastes just as yummy as the The Old Spaghetti Factory’s recipe. At first, I was a bit fearful of making it because a recipe that cautions you about setting your cookware on fire always makes me stop to think if I really want to make it. But I did, so I plunged ahead and no fire extinguisher was needed.

Ingredients for Chicken Marsala

Start by making the Browned Butter sauce. Melt butter in a heavy saucepan.

As the butter cooks, it will begin to foam. The trick is to keep it from foaming out of the pan and possibly catching things on fire.

You'll cook the butter sauce until it turns brown and has a caramel smell. Then you strain it and it is ready to serve.

Flour the chicken before placing into a saute pan.

Brown the chicken before adding in the wine and mushrooms.

Put your cooked chicken Marsala on a bed of thin spaghetti noodles.

Grate your cheese and sprinkle liberally over the chicken after it is plated and you have spooned on butter sauce.

Enjoy!

Chicken Marsala with Browned Butter Sauce

Chicken Marsala:

4 -6 boneless, skinless, thinly cut chicken breasts

1/2 cup flour

2 tbsp. olive oil

2 tbsp. butter

1 cup fresh sliced mushrooms

1 bottle Marsala wine

dash of salt

seasonings to taste

thin spaghetti noodles, cooked according to package directions

Put olive oil into a deep skillet or saute pan. Warm over medium heat. Mix  flour, salt and seasonings in ziploc bag. Coat each piece of chicken with flour mixture before placing in saute pan. Brown on both sides – about two minutes per side. Add wine and mushrooms and cook for about 10 minutes or until chicken is done.

Cook spaghetti noodles and set aside.

Browned Butter Sauce:

2 cubes of butter

1 cup Myzithra cheese, finely grated

Cut cubes of butter into 8 pieces  each and place in a heavy 2-quart saucepan. Place the pan on a burner on medium heat. Bring butter to a slow boil (about five minutes). Once the butter starts to boil, stir constantly to prevent residue from sticking to the bottom of the pan. The butter will foam and rise as it cooks.  Do not, repeat, do not let it overflow the pan. This could start a fire and that would totally ruin a perfectly good recipe!

Once the butter stops rising and foaming, cook until it is amber in color and has a caramel aroma.  Remove pan from burner and let settle for a few minutes. The sediment will settle on the bottom of the pan.

Pour the butter through a strainer into a bowl. Do not disturb the sediment.  Set aside. (The butter sauce can be stored covered in the fridge and reheated as needed).

Using a fine grater, grate 1 cup of the Myzithra cheese. This cheese is a Greek hard cheese and can be found in the specialty cheese section of most grocery stores.

Plate noodles, top with chicken and mushrooms, spoon on butter sauce and finish it off with a liberal sprinkling of the cheese.

Enjoy!

Happy Entertaining!

Shanna