Chicken Marsala , Chicken Piccatta

I remembered this little restaurant across from the Port Authority when I lived in New York City that was a pasta store in front and a restaurant in back where they served great chicken Piccata. I think it was called Supreme Macaroni and was where they shot the album cover Billy Joel's Scenes from an Italian Restaurant but I'm not sure of the latter.

I knew it was basically a flour, lemon and butter sauce but I wanted to find a recipe to refresh my memory before jumping into it. After looking through a bunch of my favorite Italian cookbooks for chicken or veal piccata recipes without success, I finally gave up and found a recipe for Veal Piccata in my New Basics Cookbook.

What's going on here? I started thinking that maybe these aren't Italian dishes but a quick check in my Food Lover's Companion proved to me that yes, these are indeed from Italy. When I looked in my refrigerator, I realized we didn't have any lemons and this is not an easy dish to make without a lemon and I didn't feel like running to the grocery store.

Here's where it gets interesting. Since I had already pounded the chicken breasts thin, I lucked out when I looked at the recipe right next to Piccata on the same page.Veal Marsala.

Hey, this calls for flattened veal cutlets so my chicken breasts will work and I have all the other ingredients so here we go. For the record, this recipe calls for 4 boneless veal cutlets. I had six chicken breasts already flattened so I cooked all six and used only three of the breasts for Chicken Marsala and decided to buy a lemon the next day and try my hand at Chicken Piccata.

There would be leftovers for a delicious quick and easy meal the next night (which is a good thing with two little ones to take care of) and I would recreate that delicious Chicken Piccata that I remembered from my life in New York City. Life is good.

The New Basics recipe below for chicken Marsala is good, but I wanted the real thing, a classic Marsala sauce like you get in your favorite Italian Restaurant. So I called my friend, Chef Ricco, who has forgotten more about cooking than I will ever know. He learned how to make a classic chicken Marsala from his mother who happened to be Frank Sinatra's family cook for a number of years.

Chef Ricco gave me step by step details on how to perfect your chicken Marsala at home which I turned into my first 23 page mini eCookbook called Chicken Marsala Perfected. It's more of a cooking lesson on how to saute and make a pan sauce than just on recipe. It also shows you how to make Marsala Sauce for steak and veal.