Chicken Marsala

I had just finished breaking down a chicken for a photo session when I realized that it was time to eat. Fortunately, I had some chicken on the cutting board. A quick trip to the pantry for inspiration yielded sweet Marsala wine and veal demiglace. Sometimes you need to test recipes a lot to get them right. Other times you can just throw something together and it’s virtually perfect.

First, I prepped the chicken breasts. Bone-in and skin on is the juiciest way to prepare chicken breasts, but I’d deboned and removed the skin on the breasts for photos, so boneless, skinless chicken breasts seemed an excellent choice.  A quick rinse and pat dry with a paper towel, then salt and pepper (3 kinds) completed the prep.

I try never to start cooking without thinking things through and getting organized. While the chicken rested for a few minutes, I prepared my mise en place: slice some onion and crimini mushrooms; have a couple tablespoons of unsalted butter ready for the pan; pour a couple tablespoons of marsala into a prep bowl so I won’t be pouring alcohol from a bottle into a hot pan; make sure to have a tablespoon or so of demiglace ready. Okay, I’m set and I have a plan.

When I’m doing classes and demos, I hear lots of questions about food sticking to the pan. I rarely have that problem, and here’s why. First, I let the protein I’m cooking come to room temperature or as near to it as 30 minutes sitting out will do. Then I put some fat in the pan, usually olive oil, butter, or both. Then I preheat the pan–never preheat an empty pan, it can burn. The pan is ready when the oil shimmers or the butter foams. Only then do I put the protein into the pan.

Patience is a virtue when cooking. It’s really important to wait until the protein is ready before turning it. With most meats you’ll be able to see that the color has changed. Turn it once and let it finish. The small bits that cling to the pan are what makes sauces so flavorful.

When the chicken is almost done, lift it out and set it aside, covered. If you cover it, residual heat will finish the cooking. Add butter and maybe a bit of olive oil to the pan and sauté the mushrooms and onions. Be sure to add salt and pepper.

Push the mushrooms and onions to one side of the pan and deglaze with marsala. Be sure to keep your face back when pouring the wine into the hot pan just in case it ignites. Wine rarely ignites, but there’s really no point in taking the risk. Stir in the demiglace, mix everything nicely, and taste. It’s probably just fine, but taste it to make sure and adjust the seasoning, as necessary.

Plate the chicken, add a nice potato gratin and salad greens dressed with a simple balsamic vinaigrette, then spoon the marsala sauce over the chicken. And that’s how I paid the photographer. Thanks, Dad!

Candy Cap Gelato

Gelato is the truly ethereal version of ice cream that originates in Italy. Most important to a gelato is to start with a good base and to finish with low-speed churning that incorporates as little air as possible.

There are two standard gelato bases, white and yellow. The white base is made without eggs, the yellow with. Precise proportions vary from maker to maker, however. Here is the white gelato base I use.

White Gelato Base

1½ cup/12 oz./340g whole milk
1½ cup/12 oz./340g heavy cream
½ cup/3.5 oz./100g granulated sugar
½ cup/6 oz./170g honey or glucose

Mix together in a saucepan over medium-low heat and bring to 176-180°F/80-82°C, stirring frequently. Infuse with flavorings for 30 minutes, covered. Strain into a stainless steel bowl in an ice bath, then refrigerate overnight. Process in a gelato or ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s directions.

Glucose tastes neutral, honey tastes like honey. If the flavoring you intend to use will be masked by or conflict with honey, use glucose.

If you aren’t familiar with candy cap mushrooms, read my first post on this mushroom. To make candy cap gelato, I used about ¼ ounce/7 grams dried candy cap mushrooms and ¼ teaspoon cinnamon to infuse my white gelato base made with honey.

On the palate, it begins with a slightly fungal honey nose, then the candy caps spring to life. This year there is a strong maple syrup-butterscotch blend. The taste of honey lingers on the palate. The deep, rich flavor of the candy caps really shines in gelato.

Candy Cap Carrot Purée

Lactarius rubidus at MykoWeb.com (Photo: © Michael Wood)

This is Lactarius rubidus, commonly known as the candy cap. These amazing fungi, when dried, are very strongly fragrant, hinting of maple syrup, butterscotch, and butter pecan ice cream. Don’t believe me? Visit the folks at MykoWeb and see what they’ve written. Better yet, do like I did and buy some from Oregon Mushrooms.

Candy caps are rather small mushrooms, but don’t let the small size fool you. They pack a powerful aromatic punch similar in strength to a fresh truffle. When my packet of ‘shrooms arrived, I could smell them through the plastic bag they were sealed into, and the aroma lingered on my hands.

I purchased them to make gelato as the challenge ingredient for my annual ice cream class. But the first time I actually used them was in one of my favorite vegetable dishes, carrot purée.

Candy Cap Carrot Purée

1 quart water
¼ ounce dried candy cap mushrooms
8 medium carrots
½ teaspoon kosher or sea salt
½ cup diced pineapple
¼-½ cup crème fraîche (optional)
fleur de sel and white pepper to taste

Bring the water and mushrooms to a boil. If you are concerned about grittiness from the dried mushrooms, let the mushrooms infuse the hot water for at least 30 minutes, then strain. I wanted the mushrooms in the purée, so I proceeded without waiting.

This is not a refined dish, so I left the carrots unpeeled; you can peel them if you want a lighter texture and color, and don’t mind losing a significant portion of the nutrient value. Add the carrots to the water and simmer for about twenty minutes. Then add the pineapple and continue simmering until the carrots are done.

Once the carrots are done, carefully transfer everything to the work bowl of a food processor and purée. Adjust the seasoning, and add some crème fraîche to smooth out the rough edges of the flavor. I suspect some silken tofu would do nicely in place of the dairy, but I haven’t tried it.

I could easily have used maple syrup to achieve approximately the same flavor, but by using candy caps, I got maple flavor without the added sugars and calories in the syrup. Now that I’ve tasted them, I can hardly wait for butternut squash soup perfumed with candy caps for Thanksgiving or Christmas!

Pea and Mushroom Soup

When mushrooms have been sitting around a day or two longer than they really should, or you find a sale on dried mushrooms, make some mushroom stock. Then, when you need an umami-filled light lunch or quick soup, you’ll have a great base to build upon.

I had more shiitake mushrooms than I could use, and they were starting to dry out, so I cut them into large chunks and put them into a small sauce pan with some filtered water. After they’d simmered for an hour, I added more filtered water and some porcini powder, then let the pot simmer another 30 minutes. After letting it cool a bit, I strained it, pressing as much liquid as possible out of the mushrooms. The result was a very rich mushroom stock with a nice dark brown color. A stock like this will last for 3 days in the refrigerator or a month in the freezer.

To make this soup, I cut some crimini mushrooms into thick slices and lightly sautéed them with a some butter and extra virgin olive oil; leave out the butter for a dairy-free soup. I added some chunks of grilled chicken, but it would have been an excellent vegan soup without the chicken.

I added mushroom stock to the fry pan and let the chicken warm up for about 3 minutes. Then I poured everything into a bowl.

Next, I added a bit of canola oil to the fry pan and quickly fried some cooked soba noodles–make sure you use 100% buckwheat soba noodles to make this gluten-free. Once the noodles began sticking to the pan, I poured the mushrooms, chicken, and stock into the fry pan to deglaze, added whole sugar snap peas, and grabbed some bowls. After about two minutes it was ready to serve. Total time, start to finish, was about 15 minutes.

Such a short cooking time means the peas were still crunchy, a great contrast with the mushrooms. The umami-rich mushroom stock made this a very satisfying meal.

Mushroom Frittata

Puffball, Maitake, Shiitake

The primary mushroom vendor at the Portland Farmers Market had a nice selection this weekend. A friend decided I should make something with Puffball, Maitake, and Shiitake mushrooms, so she handed me a bag when I arrived at her house. “Use these for supper,” she said, and asked if we needed to go shopping. “Do you have eggs and salad greens?” She nodded.

A frittata is always quick and easy and is a great way to use up leftovers. All you need is eggs. Potatoes are a traditional filler, and cheese is the most common topping. My home creamery additions included fresh butter and crème fraîche; from the pantry I added sweet onion marmalade, garlic confit, and extra virgin olive oil flavored with rosemary and pink peppercorns. A quick trip to my friend’s recently planted garden yielded a couple of sage leaves and a few chives. A nice spring onion from the Farmers Market rounded out the ingredients.

First, a sauce. To crème fraîche I added snipped chives, several mashed cloves of garlic confit, and some Bali sea salt smoked with cinnamon. Making a simple topping like this before preparing the main dish allows time for the flavors to marry.

For the frittata, I first browned some butter with sage leaves, then added the rosemary-pink peppercorn olive oil and sautéed the chopped mushrooms.  When the mushrooms were about ready to give up their water, I added thinly sliced potato–not too much–and diced spring onion. After a couple of minutes I deglazed the pan with some white wine and covered to steam the potatoes for about five minutes. Meanwhile, I readied the broiler.

When the potatoes were ready, I added a bit more olive oil–no nonstick pan for this dish–then added five room-temperature eggs, lowered the temperature to medium low, and stirred just enough to mix everything well. I spooned some sweet onion marmalade on top, then I patiently waited.

Once the bottom was set I sprinkled some grated parmigiano reggiano on top and put the pan under the broiler, which is why no nonstick pan. As the frittata finished under the broiler I quickly made a balsamic vinaigrette (3:1) for the greens. The finished frittata was dressed with a generous dollop of garlic-chive crème fraîche.

Mushroom Frittata