Carmela's Chicken

A few weeks ago, I went to Macaroni Grill for the first time.  I am a big fan of Chicken Marsala so I decided to try "Carmela's Chicken."  It was amazing!  I found a copycat recipe for it that I adapted a bit and made for dinner...well it was mighty tasty!  It's basically a creamy Chicken Marsala pasta dish. Here is the link to the original recipe, but here is what I actually used:

I knew I was going to grill my chicken and I don't always have the best luck with keeping it from drying out so I decided to brine my chicken first and it definitely made a difference.  I soaked my chicken (about 2 pounds) in this mixture:

Brine:
3 cups cold water
1/4 cup salt
1/4 cup sugar
2 cups ice cubes

I let my chicken soak for one hour--there are a variety of recipes out there and I've read different soaking times, but one said that a lot of people make the mistake of leaving it in the brine for too long.  That recipe suggested an hour so I went with it!  There are also a variety of brine flavors out there--you can add different spices or switch granulated sugar for brown sugar depending on what flavor you want.

While my chicken was soaking, I made the caramelized onions.  There was a link attached to the original recipe that called for yellow onions, but I decided to use shallots.  I used a recipe that I adapted from Smitten Kitchen, which is a fantastic blog with lots of great recipes :)  The Carmela's Chicken recipe called for 6 ounces of caramelized onions--I had just under a 1/2 a pound of shallots.  Here is the actual recipe I used:

Caramelized Shallots:
1 1/2 Tablespoons of butter
1/2 pound of shallots, sliced
2 1/2 teaspoons of sugar
2 1/2 teaspoons of red wine vinegar
pinch of salt
pinch of pepper
2 teaspoons of parsley

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.

Melt the butter in an oven-proof pan/dutch oven.  Add the shallots and sugar and mix.  Cook over medium heat for about 8 minutes (until they begin to brown).  Add the vinegar, salt and pepper and toss.

Put the pan in the oven and roast for about 10 minutes.  Toss with the parsley.

The onions can always be done in advance so if you want this to be a quicker meal, you can make these the night before.


Ok...so now for the Carmela's Chicken recipe:

2 Tablespoons of Extra Virgin Olive Oil

4 Tablespoons of Butter
8 ounces mushrooms
12 ounces grilled chicken, sliced

salt and pepper
2 teaspoons basil
6 ounces caramelized onion
6 ounces Marsala wine
20 ounces heavy cream 

16 ounces cooked rigatoni pasta
2 ounces Parmesan cheese

Heat the butter and oil and add mushrooms, chicken, salt, pepper, basil and onions.  Saute for 60-90 seconds.

Add the Marsala and saute for 60 seconds.  Add the heavy cream and bring to a boil over high heat.  

Add the pasta and cheese and stir until everything is mixed.

It seems like there are a lot of steps to this recipe, but it's really not too involved.  It took about one and a half hours to make--and that is including the hour that the chicken took to sit in the brine.  I served this with a salad and some Italian bread.