Chicken with Marsala, Mushrooms, and Olives
I am not somebody who spends her time wondering whether beets might snuggle up to pomegranates, creating a novel salad. Or tasty new ways with quinoa. Instead, I do lots of wheelchair jenga.
(Not wheelchair jenga.)
Saturdays mean soccer practice. I rise early and head out to the garage, where John’ speciality soccer chair, a $10,000 behemoth, waits beneath its tarp, battery low. Moving garbage and recycling bins aside, I maneuver the chair indoors, hook it up to one of our portable battery chargers, and start juicing it up. Getting accustomed to this low-lying, powerful beast took some doing; when we first acquired it, John crashed it into a doorway, taking a chunk of the molding with him.
The recent death of his everyday chair occasioned the use of his backup chair, once his power soccer chair, christened Louis (don’t ask). Transitioning to Louis posed some problems, including poor back support and wonky footrests. Plus we both kept honking the horn by mistake. It beat the alternative, which was a rental.
Everyday chair, which is nameless, was diagnosed with a broken controller arm. This is like needing a new brain. Only this chair is no longer in production, meaning new brains are no longer available. Our insurer proposed John get a new wheelchair. This is like suggesting you get new legs, or a heart-lung transplant.
Meanwhile, our wheelchair fitter, who lived in Santa Rosa, lost his house in the fires.
Long story short: a brain for everyday chair was somehow located and installed Tuesday. A new power chair was also found, and offered for test driving in our narrow-halled house. This afternoon.
I share all this to explain my absence online. All these repairs and test drives happen chez IK. This is necessary because John can’t walk. Alas. And all these fixes and test drives require wheelchair transfers, i.e., moving John from chair A to chair B, a task the wheelchair techs cannot legally perform, lest they drop the client, leaving him more crippled than when they began.
(I am the wife. Who transfers from chair A to chair B. I am allowed to make these jokes. Also I am a crip myself. Just in case somebody out there was getting righteous. Besides, we must laugh at ourselves or go mad).
Anyway, that’s where I’ve been.
(With thanks to John, who didn’t flinch when I turned off the highway and blithely announced I was taking a few quick snapshots. This was Thanksgiving Day, in Petaluma, California, on Highway 116.)
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I may be contending with wheelchair repair, but I realize many of you are facing the equally stressful event called the holidays. For December is hard upon us. Even as we are awash in holiday recipes, we gotta eat regular food.
Chicken with Marsala, mushrooms, and olives is cousin to Chicken with Mushrooms and Marsala, but different enough to merit its own post. I mean, yeah, it’s chicken. But it’s different. Okay?
A few weeks ago I had to make dinner. There was a package of defrosted chicken thighs. Further inspection of the fridge offered up a jar of Castelvetrano olives and some mushrooms needing using up.
There was Marsala because instead of buying Madeira I keep screwing up and buying more bottles of Marsala when what I really need is Madeira. Now I have three bottles of Marsala, but no Madeira.
There’s a bit of bacon in this dish, too, because I’d just baked a fresh batch that afternoon, and decided to tip the cooking juices into the chicken dish. This is optional.
The result was wildly successful. For once I remembered to legibly write down what I’d done, along with the helpful aside: “Make this!”
Here it is.
Chicken with Marsala, Mushrooms, and Olives
prep time: about one hour
yield: 2-4 servings, easily scaled upward
about 1 tablespoon unsalted butter
about 1 tablespoon olive oil
2-3 large garlic cloves, peeled and roughly chopped
1 small shallot, peeled and roughly chopped (optional, but nice)
1 ounce mild cure bacon or pancetta, minced (optional)
generous 1/4 cup dry Marsala
1 pound brown or white mushrooms (or a mixture), wiped clean, trimmed, and sliced
2-4 bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs, ideally organic
5-6 ounces Castelvetrano, Lucques or other meaty green olives, pitted
black pepper and a bit of salt (the bacon and olives are very salty)
additional 1-2 tablespoons Marsala, if necessary
You will need a 3-4 quart stovetop-to-ovensafe pot to make this dish
Bring the chicken to room temperature before cooking.
Preheat the oven to 350F.
Place the pot over medium-low heat. Add the butter and olive oil, allowing the butter to melt and fats to blend.
Add the garlic, shallot, and bacon (if using), and allow to cook gently, stirring, for a few minutes, until the garlic and shallot soften.
Add the mushrooms and Marsala. Turn the heat up a bit and cook, five to seven minutes. The goal is to drive some of the moisture out of the mushrooms. Stir occasionally. If you haven’t pitted your olives, now is a good time to do so.
Lay the chicken pieces in the pan, skin side up. Arrange the pitted olives around the chicken. Salt lightly and add about a teaspoon black pepper. Check the liquid level; it should come about a quarter of the way up the chicken. Add more Marsala if necessary (water is okay at this point, too).
Using mitts, slide the pan into the oven and cook for an hour, uncovered, checking the liquid level at the halfway point.
Chicken is fully cooked when meat is no longer pink at the bone and juices run clear. Taste for salt before serving.
Serve with rice, polenta, green salad, orzo, or mashed potato. Leftovers are great in a roll.
Chicken will keep, refrigerated, up to three days.
Chicken may be frozen, but will become soggy. Mushrooms/olives will not freeze well.
Notes:
Alternatively, you could do none of the above, chucking all the ingredients into the dish and cooking it all in the oven for an hour. The nuance will be lost. But it will be dinner, and will be edible.
A lightly cured bit of bacon or pancetta is nice but not necessary. Or you could pour in a bit of cream. Both would be too rich, unless yours is a gut of iron.
I used Castelvetrano olives for the dish; Lucques or another meaty green olive would work. I’d avoid black olives.
To pit or not to pit the olives? Living as I do with somebody who has breathing and eating difficulties, I pit the olives. We have enough problems without choking hazards.
You could use any chicken cut, like legs or breast or a mixture, but boneless will speed the cooking time, and the mushrooms should be cut smaller to account for this.
If you can afford better mushrooms, are a forager, or have friends who forage, by all means add upscale mushrooms. Always forage with knowledgable people and never eat what you cannot identify.
If you do not have Marsala, white wine will produce a different but delicious dish.
