Tag Archives: Marsala

Tapas-Style Sautéed Mushrooms

I’d been oggling Bev’s recipe for sautéed mushrooms on Tasty Kitchen for a while, and finally got around to making them for a big group of friends back in February. And oh are they good. They do have a long cooking time–about 50 minutes–but require very little supervision, so you can let them cook away while you focus on the main dish you’re preparing. And once they’re done–oh my. Soaked in sweet wine flavor, pungent with garlic, brightened by the parsley and lemon juice and slightly crunchy with coarse salt. This dish reminds me of my deep love of food, and the pleasure of cooking what I truly enjoy to the very roots of my taste buds.

I modified it to serve a larger group, and used sliced baby bella mushrooms instead of the whole mushrooms Bev used–I also increased the cook time to make sure all the wine was absorbed by the mushrooms. Here goes!

Ingredients

(Serves 6-8)

32 oz baby bella and white mushrooms, whole or sliced
6 TBS Butter
8 cloves garlic
3/4 cup Marsala wine
2 pinches coarse salt (kosher or sea salt)
2 cups minced fresh parsley
1 lemon, juiced

Mince the garlic and parsley, and juice the lemon.

Melt the butter in a large cast iron skillet over medium high heat. When bubbly, add the minced garlic and bloom for about 30 seconds.

Add the Marsala wine and bring it to a boil.

Add the mushrooms, lower the heat and cook (covered) for 25 minutes, stirring and lightly salting occasionally.

Uncover and continue to simmer the mushrooms for another 25 minutes, stirring occasionally and adding salt to taste until the liquid has been almost completely absorbed. I also tossed in a little black pepper–I can’t resist that stuff.

After a while the liquid will be nicely absorbed and the mushrooms will now be ready for you to fall in love with them.

Toss in the lemon juice and parsley, sprinkle with coarse salt, and serve.

If you already love mushrooms, I guarantee you will love this way of making them.

Next time I’m alone for dinner I dream of making a huge batch and eating the whole thing myself.

Just want everyone to know where I stand.

A fun serving idea–you could bring the cast iron to the table with a bunch of skewers or forks and have everyone share the mushrooms directly from the pan. That would be very español.

And can I just say? I’m so glad to be sharing recipes again after such a long pregnancy-induced hiatus. Aaaaahhh.

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Chicken and Mushrooms Marsala

Happy day before Thanksgiving!

And while the nation ponders the all-consuming ‘turkey’ issue (fried? roasted? covered? uncovered? brined?), I have something completely different on my mind. Chicken!

This dish (inspired by this blog post–thanks Amy!) incorporates many of my favorite things: mushrooms. Cream. Sweet wines. One-skillet meals.

Would you believe me if I told you that I’ve made it at least 4 times in the past 6 or so weeks? And that I made a sinfully delicious variation that we dubbed ‘Bacon Marsala’? And lemme tell you: for someone who has the food-blogger-like tendency of never making something twice (which, for the record, is a habit I had long before becoming a quasi-food-blogger-person), this is extraordinary.

It’s just so easy to make, uses such basic ingredients–and it’s so, so, so good.

Okay, less raving and more showing!

Ingredients

 (Serves 4)

2 TBS olive oil
1 TBS butter
1 ½ lbs boneless, skinless chicken thighs
Salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste
1 lb sliced cremini mushrooms
3 shallots or 1 red onion
4 cloves garlic
1 ¼ cups Marsala wine
1 cup chicken stock
½ cup heavy cream
1 tsp dried thyme
1 cup frozen peas

Chop the chicken thighs into large chunks, trimming and discarding the fat.

Season and toss the chicken with a generous amount of salt and pepper.

In a large skillet, heat 1 TBS of oil and the TBS of butter over high heat.

When hot, add the chicken, and cook for 6-7 minutes, stirring occasionally, until browned (but not cooked through).

Remove the chicken to a plate.

I have to add here that when I’m in a hurry, nothing gets removed from the skillet. Everything goes into the pan at once, and it still turns out great.

Heat the remaining tablespoon of oil in the same skillet over medium high heat, and add the mushrooms.

Cook the mushrooms until browned, about 5-6 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Mince the shallots and garlic as the mushrooms cook. You can use a red onion instead, if you have one handy (I’m very partial to this option). Or a white onion. Or a yellow onion. Whatevuh.

Add the shallots and garlic to the mushrooms, and season with salt and pepper.

Cook for about 5 minutes, stirring frequently.

Add the Marsala wine . . .

. . . and scrape up any brown bits. Simmer over medium high heat for about 8 minutes, until the liquid is reduced to about ½ cup.

Add the chicken stock, thyme . . .

. . . cream, and some more salt and pepper.

Bring to a gentle boil, and cook for about 10 minutes, until the sauce has reduced by half.

Note: I usually ignore the ‘gentle’ part and boil it like crazy, and it hasn’t seemed to harm anything or anyone.

Return the chicken to the skillet . . .

. . . and simmer over medium heat for 4-5 minutes, until the chicken is cooked through.

Add the frozen peas . . .

. . . and cook over medium heat 2-3 minutes, until they are hot.

We’re about done here.

Taste and season with more salt and pepper if needed.

Mmmm! It smells so, so good guys (and I think I’ve officially maxed out my monthly allotment of the word ‘so’ as of this sentence).

Serve over rice or noodles!

The sweet Marsala is simply perfect with the cream and shallots. These leftovers are guaranteed to be in high demand, I can tell you that.

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