Classic chicken Marsala with Italian mash

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I’ve been watching all these videos from what I 
would describe as turn-and-burn Italian American restaurants — places that do crowd-pleasing 
dishes you can fire in like six minutes and sell at a reasonable price because you’re 
doing huge volume. Get ’em in, make ’em happy, get ’em out. I really wanted to eat something like 
that, so I did. It’s a classic chicken marsala. You could have it with pasta obviously but I 
think the sauce goes really well with potatoes, so let’s make a vaguely Italian-flavored mash. I’ve got three Yukon gold potatoes — should 
be more than enough for two portions. And the way I like to make mash these days 
is to roughly dice them into centimeter cubes. Mash comes out a lot less gluey if you 
simmer the potatoes rather than boil them, and since simmering will take longer we 
can compensate by starting with smaller pieces that’ll cook faster. 
They don’t need to be uniform. Put in a minimal amount of water 
to concentrate the potato flavor and then get this up to a simmer, not a boil. While we’re waiting I can prep my veg. 
This is like five cloves of garlic, which would be a lot for the sauce. It’d make 
the sauce too chunky but half of this is gonna be for my potatoes. Here’s half a shallot I have 
left over and even that may be too much. Again, if there’s too many chunks the sauce will 
just look kinda gross — not smooth enough. Just a handful of mushrooms, very traditional 
for marsala. Their earthiness balances the sweetness of the wine. And lastly I’ll chop 
up a handful of fresh parsley, the official mid-market restaurant herb, I reckon because 
it’s mild and it stays green for a long time. I’ll move all that to a holding plate. Sorry, I’ve 
got the game on in the background. Don’t sue me, NFL. At least I’m not posting an 
“account of the game,” which is an insane thing for you claim copyright 
over but that is neither here nor there. Alright, potatoes have been simmering for 
not quite a half hour, they’re very fork tender. I’ll save that boil water — I have A/B 
tested this, and concentrated boil water brings more flavor to mash than the milk that people 
usually use. Plus I have another plan for this. Back on the heat for a sec, get a 
big knob of butter melting in there, throw in half my garlic and let it cook a little, then I’ll give these a preliminary mashing. A 
little of the water to loosen up the texture. You could just add flavors and eat these as is — 
the skins on this potato variety are fine to eat, but I’ve spoiled myself and now I’m 
hooked on the super smooth mash you get by passing these through a sieve. 
Use a wooden spoon to grind them around in circles until mash squeezes 
out the other side — velvety. To keep this on theme I’ll grate in a bunch of 
pecorino cheese, and because I’m feeling fancy, an egg yolk. It’ll cook in that heat — it really 
enriches the flavor and gives a nice golden color. Have a taste — needs salt and that’ll be it. I’ll 
microwave those for a minute right before I eat. Time for the chicken breast. And if you weren’t doing these potatoes this meal 
would be ready in 15 minutes, which is about how long it took me to set up 
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off. Thank you, Helix. Anyway, the chicken breast. As you can see, it still has at least part of 
the tenderloin muscle attached to it. I want to take that off, because it would likely fall 
off of the super-thin pieces we’re gonna cut. To get my scaloppini, I’ll carefully, slowly cut 
the breast this-a-way, and because this is such a big, thick specimen, I’ma do it in thirds — three 
total pieces, plus the tenderloin. Cover so we don’t splash raw juice everywhere and I will pound 
these out just a little. Well, the tenderloin I can pound out a lot, but with these pieces I’ll 
just flatten out the thicker ends a little. You don’t want to rely too much on the mallet 
to get super-thin chicken scallopini. The more you pound these the more they will tend to 
shred. Use the knife to make them thin. Hit these with pepper and salt. I always 
put on extra all over the board that I can mop it up with the undersides — that 
eliminates one handwashing from this process. Get a handful of flour for dusting 
and we’ll get all the surfaces coated. Pretty neat trick — four pieces, two per 
person, from just one chicken breast. My widest pan, really hot — you should see 
the olive oil shimmering and starting to smoke. Thickest piece in the middle, where it’s 
hottest. You only have a couple minutes to get any color at all on the outsides before the 
insides are cooked, hence the very high heat. There’s gonna be splatter and it’s gonna 
catch on fire if you’re cooking over a flame, so be careful. These should easily release when 
they’re golden on the first side. And when the second side looks cooked, they’re probably 
cooked enough inside, or they WILL be cooked enough after they rest and then get finished 
off in the sauce. Those took four minutes. First thing that goes in now is the 
mushrooms. I want to get a little color on them. When they’ve noticeably shrunk, 
that’s enough of a head start. Might need some more oil if the pan seems dry. Don’t let 
the bottom of the pan burn — when in doubt, turn down the heat. Next thing is the 
shallots — they’ll need a minute head start. When they’re looking soft I’ll throw in the 
rest of my garlic and just cook that for 30 seconds. Out of an abundance of caution, I’ll 
kill my open flame before I add in the marsala, which is a fortified wine — meaning, it’s 
wine with a little extra alcohol added, originally to make it keep longer, and then it’s 
aged in oak barrels, which is why it’s brown. It’s kinda halfway between white wine and 
cognac, and you can use a lot of it as long you get dry marsala. Sweet marsala would taste 
like straight sugar after you reduce it down, which I will do while scraping the bottom clean. Heat is back on, there doesn’t seem to be 
enough alcohol in here for it to ignite, but always be careful if cooking on a flame. It’s 
starting to look syrupy, which is good. This might be a little too strong for you, so people usually 
cut it with some chicken stock. I will instead use some of my potato water, which tastes 
good and has a little starch for thickening. Again, reduce it until it’s just starting 
to look syrupy. When in doubt, get it thick, because you can always thin it back out 
with more water. If you really wanted it American style you could put in some cream 
at this stage and boil it until it thickens. I’ll be a little more continental and kill 
the heat, gently melt in like half a stick of butter. If you don’t get the butter too hot, 
you preserve its natural emulsion and you should see the sauce thicken up some more. It’ll be 
even thicker at eating temperature — so, done. Time to put the chicken back in, along with the 
parsley and we’ll just toss this all together, maybe turn the heat back on to warm 
the chicken back up and then if you leave this over low heat it’ll hold for a 
long time, until everybody’s ready to eat, which makes it a good dish for 
restaurants and for house guests. The flour on that chicken really 
merges with the sauce as this sits. I nuked my mash for 60 seconds and it’s ready to 
go. A couple chicken pieces beside it, get those chunkies, and then flood the plate with sauce. It 
tastes so good on the potatoes. Thank you to that adorable Canadian guy at Vivaldi restaurant 
in Montreal — you inspired me to make this. Turn and burn, my man. Turn and burn.