Birthday Dinner – Chicken Marsala

Yesterday was my hubby’s birthday. With kid activities and homework, not enough time to go out to a restaurant,
and actually they prefer this meal to a restaurant anyway, lol!
It is amazing how delicious this is when you use real Marsala wine and not the salty stuff you can buy in the food stores.
You take chicken cutlets, lightly saute them in olive oil & butter, then make a sauce with Marsala wine, reduced chicken stock, and cream.
Add mushrooms sautéed in shallots and the chicken back in the sauce and simmer on low.
Top it off with lemon zest and fresh lemon juice. Chicken is so tender you can cut it with a fork.
We served the chicken over angel hair pasta and made a tomato, mozzarella, arugula salad with balsamic vinaigrette on the side.
Topped it off with homemade key lime cheesecake (hubby’s favorite) and it is definitely a birthday worthy meal. 🙂

Ingredients:

4 cups low sodium chicken stock
4 Tablespoons minced shallot
6 Tablespoons unsalted butter
20 to 30 oz. of trimmed mushrooms, sliced
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1 cup flour
8 skinless boneless chicken breast pieces
3 Tablespoons olive oil
1 cup dry Marsala wine
1 cup heavy cream (can use 1/2 heavy cream and 1/2 light cream)
Zest from one lemon
1 Tablespoon lemon juice

First, reduce chicken stock in half. This is just boiling the chicken stock until it evaporates by half.

Saute the shallots in 2 Tablespoons butter and 1 Tablespoon of oil.
Add half the mushrooms and saute slowly until they are cooked through.
Remove these mushrooms and shallots, place in a bowl and cook the remainder of the mushrooms.

Then place all the mushrooms aside in a bowl.

Trim chicken cutlets, and pound them thin.
Then sprinkle each piece with salt & pepper, coat lightly in flour.

Add a little more oil and butter to the saute pan and saute the chicken,
turning over once until lightly browned and just cooked through, about 3 to 4 minutes total.

Lay chicken on plate until all pieces are done.
Add the Marsala wine to de-glaze the pan.

Cook the wine about a minute to cook out the alcohol and add the reduced stock.

Add the cream and the shallots/mushrooms.

Place the chicken back in the sauce. Put lid on skillet and reduce heat to low for ~20 minutes.

Zest the lemon when ready the chicken is almost done.
Add to the chicken.

Add the fresh squeezed lemon juice.

Serve over pasta or mashed potatoes.

Yes, I did make 4 different salads. My son doesn’t eat arugula, so his was only tomatoes, mozzarella and balsamic.
My daughter likes arugula, mozzarella, basil and balsamic. My husband’s has arugula, tomatoes, mozzarella, basil and balsamic.
Mine is arugula, Craisins, pine nuts and balsamic. I make my own balsamic dressing by just putting some Dijon mustard (~1 Tablespoon),
balsamic vinegar (~1/2 cup) and a few tablespoons of sugar in a container. Then shake it really hard to mix it all together.
You can add a tiny bit of olive oil to smooth out the balsamic vinaigrette.

Definitely birthday worthy, definitely delicious!
They were fighting over the leftovers before we even finished cleaning up the table.

Here is the key lime cheesecake (and there is our puppy Rosie dressed up for the birthday party!)
Only 2 candles – one for all the years and one for good luck. We don’t want to put that many candles on a cake 🙂
The recipe I used for the cheesecake was from food.com. See link below. I made the cheesecake
the day before. It has 3/4 cup of lime juice and little sugar, so it is T A R T. Cheesecake isn’t my favorite,
but it wasn’t my birthday. The birthday boy loved it and so did the kids.
http://www.food.com/recipe/cheesecake-factory-key-lime-cheesecake-my-version-342573