Chicken in a Marsala & mustard cream sauce - as easy as winking!

Chicken in a Marsala & mustard cream sauce is quite probably my absolute favourite chicken dish from my repertoire. I've used Marsala wine, our home made Mead and even sherry in it, with excellent results for all three. I've also swapped out the wholegrain mustard for Dijon and loved that version too. So, it's a very flexible and forgiving recipe that provides incredibly yummy results.

Right at this moment, I'm on a white meat only diet following on from a really bad gout attack and I'm so glad that I remembered this one. Eating just chicken, turkey and white fish can get a bit ho hum, even after just a week. So it was nice to have chicken with a lovely unctuous, tasty sauce and I'm only surprised that I haven't got around to blogging it before now!

Another good thing about this recipe is that if you ever find yourself with no onions but a tub of cream in the fridge and chicken in the freezer, you're half way there. It's not often, these days, you find a recipe that doesn't include onion. I've often pondered on including a sauteed onion or maybe some garlic in the sauce but always reject the idea on the basis that the sauce is so good without it, why mess with perfection?

As for Cook's Notes, there's really only one you need to be aware of which is to monitor the temperature of the pan when you're frying the chicken. Of course, you don't want your chicken to burn, but equally you really don't want it to be more than a gentle golden brown or your sauce could end up a little bitter. It all depends on your particular pan. You know it best, so just keep your eye on it during the cooking.

Mmmmnnn, I could eat this all over again today if I had the chicken!

CHICKEN IN A MARSALA & MUSTARD CREAM SAUCE (serves 3)

Ingredients :

3 boneless, skinless chicken breasts

a pinch of sea salt
1 tbsp olive or rapeseed oil
120ml Marsala wine (or Mead, or Sherry)
2 tsp wholegrain mustard
100ml water
1 tsp low salt chicken stock granules (or half a low salt stock cube)
a pinch of ground black pepper
1 tsp thyme
150ml double cream
1 tsp cornflour, let down with a small amount of water.

Method :

Trim each chicken breast of any gristle or fat, then slice each breast through horizontally from the thick end to the thin end, creating two thin halves.

Place the olive or rapeseed oil into a frying pan and heat until sizzly. Gently lay each chicken breast down - and leave it alone apart from to sprinkle with a small amount of sea salt. You are aiming to achieve some colour on the chicken breasts, so they will need to stay in one position until they achieve a lovely golden colour.

Flip each breast over onto the other side and again, leave it alone to cook and gain colour for another few minutes.

Remove the chicken to a warmed plate, it doesn't matter if it isn't quite cooked through - it will finish cooking once it is in the sauce.

Pour the wine into the pan and deglaze by stirring and releasing any crispy bits that may be stuck to the pan. All these are flavour!

Once the wine has reduced by half, add the mustard, water, stock granules, black pepper and thyme. Stir thoroughly to combine.

Add the cream and stir through, then return the chicken to the pan, together with any juices that have accumulated under the chicken. Stir gently and allow the sauce to simmer.

When you are satisfied that the chicken is cooked through, if necessary add the cornflour/water mix and stir to combine. Once the sauce has thickened to your preferred consistency, serve with a selection of steamed vegetables and new potatoes.

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Slow Cooker Mushroom & Tarragon Chicken

I have discovered that, whilst all these replacements for potato are all very well, I do - and son & heir agrees with me - begin to get a terrible hankering for something potato.  So, as I'd been doing so well with the last seven or eight meals being successful, I thought I'd risk throwing a potato meal into the mix.

Now I didn't chance my arm too far - I mean, had I have dished up a frittata with dauphinoise and chips, it might have been three potatoes too many.  No, I went for a relatively safe bet, which was mash.  Good old, reliable, yummy, comfort food for the soul, mashed potato.

I was, mind you, supposed to have cooked this on the previous day.  However, when my tongue (I know, don't ask me, I haven't a clue) decided to go completely mad (bizarre swellings, weird colours) following a pastrami sandwich and a nectarine, it kind of put me off eating a bit.  So we all fended for ourselves that night (hurrah for tins of soup!) and the chicken got moved on to the following night.

Owing to the fact that we were attending a reading at son & heir's school that afternoon, ("a reading" being where the students were reading from work they had done at that day's Writer's Workshop - which turned out to be really very good indeed), I decided to break out the slow cooker.  Well, it saved me from stressing about getting the chicken cooked in time without paying for it by way of pain and discomfort later.  This is one of the very good reasons why I love my slow cooker.

I put the chicken in to cook at around 12.30pm and fished it back out to eat at around 6pm - and it was perfect.  Still succulent, not dried out at all and as tasty as a tasty thing.  The Marsala wine had contributed lots by way of flavour and aroma, and the mushrooms gave that savoury edge that took the sweetness of the wine down a notch or two.

I used my favourite Essential Cuisine powdered chicken stock in the sauce, so beware if you are using a stock cube and either use a low salt one, or don't include salt at all when you are seasoning the chicken.  Using a combination of seasoning, a salty stock cube and fairly salty gravy granules could be disastrous when all are combined!  Get yourself some Essential Cuisine stock - it's not expensive (£3.95 for enough to make 6 litres) low salt and tastes fabulous, so you never have to worry about salt levels.

Chicken loves Marsala, however the use of Marsala wine is not cast in stone.  A sweet sherry would do just as good a job - or a dessert wine, if you've got one lurking in the fridge.  As long as it's not too dry, it will do the job perfectly.

The mushrooms seem to soak up the sweet wine and become flavour bombs, so make sure not to leave any in the slow cooker when you serve up!  It would be such a shame to lose all that intense flavour.

I used dried tarragon, basically because I find that the small expense of buying a bunch of fresh tarragon just isn't worth it to use a tablespoonful and have the remainder die off in the fridge.  Dried does a perfectly good job - just don't overdo it!  By the time the mix has spent a few hours chuckling in the slow cooker, you won't know the difference between dried and fresh anyway.

A quick word about the use of gravy granules.  Now I don't see any reason to be embarrassed or shady about using them - particularly the really good ones like the Bisto Best ones.  They are a complete boon for thickening gravies and sauces, they can add a bit of oomph to an otherwise fairly uninteresting gravy and you can get so many different flavours of them now, that there is no longer any reason to have to use chicken for pork, or beef for lamb.  However, if you're interested in keeping your meals pure, then by all means go for the use of a little flour when you fry off the chicken, or introduce a cornflour slurry at gravy thickening time.  It all works.

If you have time on your hands, you can always pop the ingredients into a casserole dish and cook it in the oven.  I'd say you'd need a 180degC/350 degF/gas 4 - or moderate - oven, for probably around an hour and a half, or maybe slightly longer depending on the size of your chicken breasts.  You could cut each breast into three pieces, which would speed up the process a little.  However, I must stress that I've not tried this recipe this way - so you'd be trailblazing.

Hubby really enjoyed his meal, commenting that it was "really delicious".  Fine praise indeed!  Son and heir also approved, leaving a clean plate behind him.  I gave the entire meal a big thumb's up for satisfaction, flavour and comfort - the perfect meal for a bit of a tiring day.  So, are you feeling like you need a "meat and two veg with mash" meal?  If so, then this is the one for you.

SLOW COOKER MUSHROOM & TARRAGON CHICKEN    (serves 3)

Ingredients :

3 chicken breasts, skinless and boneless
1 tbsp rapeseed oil
sea salt & ground black pepper
1 onion, chopped fine
2 garlic cloves, chopped fine
1 tsp dried tarragon
6-7 chestnut mushrooms, sliced thinly
100ml sweet Marsala wine
400ml chicken stock
1 tbsp fresh parsley, chopped finely
1-2 tbsp Bisto Best gravy granules.

Method :

1.  Heat the oil in a large frying pan and add the chicken.  Season the side that is uppermost and fry until golden.  Turn the chicken, season lightly again and fry until golden.  Remove to the slow cooker and turn the cooker on to Low.

2.  Add the onions to the frying pan and gently cook until softened but not coloured.

3.  Add the garlic and tarragon and continue to cook for 1-2 minutes.

4.  Add the mushrooms and increase the heat slightly.  Cook until slightly softened.

5.  Add the Marsala and allow it to bubble and reduce slightly.

6.  Add the chicken stock and stir through, then add the parsley.

7.  Add the vegetables and sauce to the slow cooker, replace the lid and cook for 5-6 hours on Low.

8.  Once your vegetable accompaniments are cooking, remove the slow cooker lid and move the chicken breasts to one side.  Sprinkle the gravy granules evenly into the sauce and stir through until thickened.  Replace the lid until you are ready to serve.

Printable version

 

Tonight's Dinner : Marsala chicken with leeks, plus Rhubarb and plum sundaes!

It's been a funny old day today.  The weather has been chilly and wet, so not a day to do very much.

I was contemplating the menu plan for next week with hubby which inevitably involves taking a mental roundup of what vegetables we have left in the fridge.  I mentioned that I had quite a few plums that needed using up in some way and before I knew it, I was in the kitchen making a plum and rhubarb (which two sticks of rhubarb from the garden) compote for dessert!

That then progressed to slicing the kernels from one of the ears of corn in the fridge, to put into my small saucepan with just enough water for an Ainsley Harriott Cup a Soup - Wild Mushroom, in this case.  Once the kernels were cooked, just stir in the cupasoup mix, decant into a bowl and off you go for lunch.

Over lunch I got to thinking about this evening's dinner which was supposed to be a braised chicken dish.  However, it sounded fairly unremarkable upon second thoughts and I began pondering on how I could make it less "brown" and more interesting.

Inevitably, whenever I'm thinking about what to add to a meat dish to create flavour, my mind travels to the wine rack.  In this case, it settled upon the bottle of Marsala wine which I hadn't used in quite a while.  Marsala goes so well with chicken - and I'd used it in the past with my Velvety Marsala Chicken, with great success.  I didn't have any cream, so it would need to be a non-creamy version.  However, I did have a leek - and chicken and leek is just one of those classic combinations.  So, chicken, leek, Marsala wine ... add a few mushrooms for depth of flavour and we're sorted.  Lovely!

Lovely was indeed what it turned out to be.  I browned (or should that be "goldened"?) the chicken in the frying pan, then cooked the shallots, garlic, mushrooms and leek in the leftover butter/groundnut oil.  Then I deglazed the pan with the Marsala, added some chicken stock, parsley, freshly ground black pepper and a couple of teaspoonful of Bisto's Best Chicken gravy granules to thicken and add flavour.  Decant the whole lot into a casserole dish and cook, uncovered, in the Beastie combi oven at 200degC for 50 minutes with a pause half way through to give it all a stir.

Served with buttery mashed potato, cabbage, cauliflower, carrots, swede and Brussels sprouts, it was a perfect Sunday dinner.

Hubby then disappeared into the kitchen to create his new masterpiece, the rhubarb & plum sundae.  Take a sundae dish and spoon in some home made (and cooled) rhubarb & plum compote.  Crumble in some broken (well, I knew they'd come in handy for something) meringue nests, add a large dollop of Cornish ice cream, more compote, broken chocolate digestive biscuit, more compote and a swirl of whipped cream - and the crowning glory of a cherry on the top.

As a spur of the moment, made up on the spot, Sundae (Sunday!) dessert, it was a triumph.  Not one ingredient was bought in specifically for it, they were all either growing in the garden or surplus to requirements in the fridge or cupboard.  Now THAT is the kind of thing that makes me proud.
 

Chicken, asparagus and peas in a Marsala cream sauce : a "once in six months" dinner dish!

I am quietly very proud of this recipe.  To me, this represents a little of where I am in regard to my cooking experience.  Put in Masterchef terms, this is "my own food" - but not everyday food.  Because of the quantity of double cream, this is very definitely a "once in six months" dinner!

Even so, I'm still proud of it.

You see, at one time, I'd have cooked this a) from a recipe instead of following my own thoughts and b) if I had have been making it up from scratch, I'd have done it a totally different (and not so successful) way.

To put not too fine a point on it, we've been having a few tummy issues in the family just lately, which has resulted in our relationship with food being a bit hit and miss.  We either just haven't wanted to eat - or what we could eat has been a short list!  Still, we're getting a bit better on that front now - exhibit A being the Tapas meatballs, which had been on the menu list for probably three weeks or more.  We eventually got around to being able to face them and were jolly glad we did.

I wanted something "nice" for our Sunday dinner.  Something a little out of the ordinary, something inoffensive and unchallenging to eat, that would tempt the taste buds and satisfy the tummy.  I had a number of favourites to choose from, as anything involving cheese, bacon, curry or chilli usually gets a thumbs up of approval.  Also on that list is anything in a cream sauce, which doesn't get made that often because of the general naughtiness of the cream sauce.

The obvious choice for a cream sauce was chicken and the minute I had decided on that, the rest of the recipe just fell out of my head with virtually no amendments once I'd written it down.

Now, in days gone by, I'd have sweated off the onion and garlic, then added the chicken and in so doing would have burned the garlic, making it bitter.  I'd have then added the cream and tasted, only to find it was bland and too gloopy.  So I'd probably have added the vegetables in the hope that they'd cheer the flavour up and when they didn't, I'd probably have added something completely random like Worcestershire sauce.  The end result would have been a slightly bitter sauce with overcooked vegetables and reduced cream - all of which was pretty horrid.

Well, I reckon you have to fail at making something (and probably several times) before you begin to work out where you went wrong.

This time, I browned (or maybe that should be - more correctly - "goldened") the chicken and removed it.  Then I sweated off the onion and garlic (without burning it) and added the Marsala wine, then some stock.  (Wouldn't have thought to use stock in the past!).  I re-introduced the chicken, which cooked as the stock reduced.

Then, when the stock had reduced sufficiently that adding the cream wouldn't affect the texture of the sauce, I added the asparagus (no, not the chicken - it would have taken up too much room and the asparagus wouldn't have cooked properly) and cooked that for 2-3 minutes in the stock.  Then I re-introduced the chicken (so that it could re-heat), then the peas (as they only need seconds in which to heat up), then in the final few minutes, the cream.  Leaving the cream until last means that the ingredients all cook and exchange flavours with the stock - so it's essential to use a good stock.  It also means that the cream doesn't have time in which to reduce, so maintaining the integrity of your sauce.  Bring it all back up to temperature and serve.  Perfect.

I made a couple of mistakes with the accompaniments though.  Firstly, I used rather too much thyme on my garlic and thyme roast potatoes and parsnips.  This is purely a personal taste issue, as I find too much thyme to be redolent of disinfectant.  Hubby and son & heir enjoyed them though.  Oh, and they'd have been a lot more crispy if the oven hadn't decided to turn itself off (for some reason, it switched over to timer-controlled.  I lost some 15 minutes of cooking time, thanks to that!) half way through.

Secondly, I decided to make a variation on Vichy Carrots.  I didn't want the sweetness that a Vichy carrot brings with it, so decided to use vegetable stock to cook them in, but omit the sugar - adding the butter that makes the glaze and cooking them in the same way as Vichy carrots.  Well, it kind of worked.  They tasted great, albeit a teensy bit overcooked as I used too much stock which took too long to reduce and the use of stock instead of water gave them an odd colouring.  That one needs further work, I think!

However, there were murmurs of appreciation all round as the family tucked into their chicken.  The chicken breasts were still tender and moist - not overcooked - and deliciously flavoured from being cooked in the stock and Marsala wine.  The asparagus was perfectly cooked with just a teensy bit of bite left in each piece and the cream sauce was just delicious.  Real lick the plate stuff!

If we had three more chicken breasts, I'd be perfectly happy to eat that again for dinner tonight, it was that good.   Aaah, happy sigh! 



CHICKEN, ASPARAGUS AND PEAS IN A MARSALA CREAM SAUCE   (serves 3)

Ingredients :

1 tbsp rapeseed or olive oil
3 boneless, skinless chicken breasts 
1 small onion, finely chopped
1 clove garlic, minced finely
150ml sweet Marsala wine
200ml chicken stock, using 1 tsp stock powder or 1 stock cube
150g asparagus, cut on the diagonal into 1" pieces
3 handfuls of frozen peas, defrosted
sea salt & black pepper
150ml double cream.

Method :

1.  In a deep frying pan or wok, heat the oil over a moderate to high heat.  Add the chicken breasts and fry, undisturbed, on each side in order to gain a little golden colour.  Reserve on a plate.

2.  Add the onion to the frying pan and reduce the heat to moderate.  Stir fry, not allowing the onion to brown, until demonstrably softened.  Add the garlic and continue cooking for another minute.

3.  Quickly add the Marsala wine and allow to frizzle for a moment or two.  Add the stock (or water and stock powder) and bring to a boil.

4.  Gently return the chicken to the pan and maintain the boil so that the stock begins to reduce.  Cook like this until the stock has reduced to a third of its original quantity.

5.  Remove the chicken breasts back to the plate and add the asparagus and black pepper to taste.  Cook for 2-3 minutes or so until softening, then return the chicken to the pan.  Continue to cook for another minute or so to bring the chicken back up to temperature.

6.  Add the peas and as soon as the sauce has returned back up to temperature, add the cream and, once again, bring back up to temperature.

7.  Check for seasoning, adjust if necessary and serve with roast potatoes and a selection of vegetables.

Printable version

Velvety Marsala Chicken & Mushrooms

I haven't posted a meal plan for this week because hubby's sore throat has meant that our plans have changed from day to day, depending on how he is.  After all, it's no good my spending time in the kitchen making a tomato based meal containing chilli if that would be inedible for him!

So following on from the Slow Cooked Chicken Stew with Dumplings that did him so much good, we had a bit of a diversion in the form of a Chinese takeaway.  The chicken curry contained therein was a bit frisky, but didn't affect him adversely, so I knew I could stretch the ingredients list for the next dish.

I'd had it in mind to cook a chicken dish in a mild creamy sauce, to be served with rice.  The finer details hadn't really gelled at that stage, so I began to consider the flavours I wanted to go with it.  Mushrooms were a given, as I had a bit of a glut of mushrooms in the fridge at the time.  However, should I go down the tarragon, Marsala or mushroom ketchup route?

Tarragon goes very well with mushrooms - and with Marsala wine.  So I decided to go with tarragon, whatever happened.  It would add another dimension to the dish and I could save a little tarragon to add a fresh green note and a tiny crunch, at the end.

So - Marsala -v- mushroom ketchup.   They both had promise and would be fine bedfellows with the cream in the sauce.  The mushroom ketchup would accentuate the flavour of the chestnut mushrooms and send the dish down a more savoury route.  However, the Marsala wine would be a different flavour altogether, adding to the layers of flavour that were planned already.  Plus, it was sweet - and with the Savoy cabbage and plain rice I was planning on serving it with, would provide a lovely contrast to their flavours.

It was the added dimension that the Marsala would bring, that swung it for me.  Now, if you don't have any Marsala wine and want to have a crack at this dish (it was simplicity itself to make), a medium Sherry would be just perfect as an alternative.

I just knew that the velvety creaminess of the savoury/sweet sauce would go so, so well with the Savoy cabbage.  However, I opted not to tell the chaps about the cabbage aspect of the dish.  *wink*  I knew there'd be objections, if I did - but I also knew that if they just gave it a go, there was every possibility that they'd like it a lot.  Which they did!

In the event, I did have a bit of a waver when preparing the cabbage and decided to include a few peas, just in case one or both of them really didn't like the cabbage.  I felt the presence of a pea or two might have just meant the difference between rejection or acceptance.  I know.  It's unlikely - but there you are, that was the way I was thinking at the time.  Well, it made me feel better!

As it was, this dish was an absolutely corker.  (For those of you who might not know what "a corker" is - it's "something above average".  So in other words, it was flipping lovely!).  The chicken was cooked perfectly and still moist and juicy.  The celery and onion had disappeared into the sauce - just as I had planned it - leaving their flavour behind.  The garlic wasn't in evidence beyond adding to the savoury nature of the sauce and the Marsala/chicken stock/cream combination was just divine.


One of the best parts of the dish was the combination of the velvety sauce with the Savoy cabbage, hence I thoroughly recommend you include some Savoy when you make it.  The rice was very welcome as a plain counterpoint to the richness of the sauce.   Mashed potato would have been too buttery and just tipped the flavours too much into the rich & fatty.  As it was, with its accompaniments, it was perfect.

Everything prepared and ready to go - so that you can see how small to chop!

Now, a couple of notes for when you cook the dish.  The combination of butter and oil to fry the chicken, is very necessary for the flavour, so don't be tempted to drop the butter part.  The butter is the starting point for the development of the flavour in the sauce.  The oil is there simply to stop the butter from burning at a high temperature - so don't be tempted to drop the oil either, or you'll have horrid black specks in your sauce!


Where the chicken stock is concerned, you will see I use an entire Knorr stock pot (usually dissolved in 400ml of water) for 150ml of stock.   This is entirely intentional, as you need the intense chicken flavour for the sauce.  Only using half a stock pot (or cube - your choice) will result in a lacklustre sauce.

Lastly, for all that I have said to use 150ml of double cream, be ready to have some left over.  It is good to have that little bit of cream there, just in case you are delayed in dishing up and your sauce becomes too reduced.  Just add a fraction of water and a drop more cream, stir well and your sauce will be restored.

The sauce - it is there, honest! - is hiding beneath the cabbage.

It would be possible to use a low fat creme fraiche and gain similar results, while reducing the fat content of the dish.  However - do not allow the sauce to boil (or even simmer rapidly) once you have added the low fat creme fraiche.  This is most important - or you will split the sauce and wind up with horrid flabby lumps floating around!  Cream, because of its high fat content, will emulsify with the liquid of the sauce and be fairly stable.  Low fat creme fraiche, only emulsifies at a lower temperature.  So you have been warned!

So there you have it!  I thoroughly enjoyed this dish - and my menfolk did too.  You can't get better recommendation than that.


VELVETY MARSALA CHICKEN & MUSHROOMS   (serves 3)

Ingredients :

2 tbsp rapeseed or olive oil
a large knob of butter
3 skinless, boneless chicken breasts, cut into 1" chunks
sea salt & freshly ground black pepper
1 small onion, finely chopped
1 clove of garlic, finely chopped or grated
1 stick of celery, finely chopped
6-7 large chestnut mushrooms, thickly sliced
150ml sweet Marsala wine
150ml chicken stock (using an entire Knorr stock pot or stock cube)
fresh tarragon , to make 2 tbsp when finely chopped
150ml double cream.

Method :

1.  Take a large deep frying pan and heat the oil together with the butter.  Once the butter is foaming, add the chicken and turn the heat to high.  Make sure the chicken doesn't crowd the pan, as you want it to fry and not poach.  Brown the chicken in batches, if necessary.  Season the chicken and leave it to gain a golden colour.  Just turn the chicken the once, as keeping on turning it doesn't let the colour develop and the chicken will overcook before you've gained the right golden brown colour on at least two sides.  Once browned, remove from the pan with a slotted spoon and reserve to keep warm.

2.  Add the onions to the pan and stir lightly to coat in the oils.  Allow the onions to fry, stirring occasionally, until transparent and just turning golden.  You don't want any brown or black onions for this dish.

3.  Add the garlic and stir to combine.  Fry for approximately a minute, then add the celery and continue to stir and cook for another 3-4 minutes.

4.  Add the sliced mushrooms - you may need to add a little more butter at this stage, as mushrooms will drink up the oil in the pan.  However, don't overdo the butter because as they cook, they will release a certain amount back into the pan again.  Cook the mushrooms until they are softened.

5.  Increase the heat under the pan and return the chicken to the pan.  Add the Marsala and allow to frizzle, which will help to burn off a percentage of the alcohol.  Reduce the temperature of the pan so that the wine returns to a simmer and cook for another few minutes, until reduced by a third.

6.  Add the chicken stock and two thirds of the tarragon and stir through.  Continue on a lively simmer until reduced by half.  Taste for seasoning and add more if necessary.

7.  Add two thirds of the cream and stir through.  Continue to simmer and reduce - without boiling - until the sauce has achieved your preferred consistency.  In this instance, I like the sauce to be at double cream consistency - sufficient to coat the back of a spoon.  Add the remaining tarragon and stir through.

Serve on a bed of Savoy cabbage and peas, with plain white rice.

Printable version

Slow Cooker Veal Marsala - using British Rose Veal at its best

Ever since I discovered British Rose Veal and first became aware of the plight of the male dairy calves, I've wanted to encourage everyone I meet to give a try to British Rose Veal.  Now, if this recipe doesn't do that, I guess there's no hope for you all.

As always, when I receive something new to work with, I have a look across the internet to see what other people are doing with it - and then do something different.  Well, at the very least it shows me which sorts of recipes are used a lot (and so I'll steer clear of those) and more to the point, it demonstrates what are the popular methods of cooking the item.  Sometimes, you see, I haven't a clue what temperature to use or how long for, etc.

With this British Rose Veal, because Farmers Choice Free Range Ltd had kindly sent a number of different cuts, I'd had plenty of opportunity to explore some different recipes and methods, so having got to know the meat a bit better, I was better able to consider doing justice to a classic recipe.  Apart from Wiener Schnitzel, one of the most popular recipes seemed to be Veal Marsala.

Look how lean the veal is!  Just beautiful.

Now, the cut of British Rose Veal I had available for this recipe was some escalopes - and the Wiener Schnitzels had been calling to me from way back down the ages.  I can remember my parents ordering Wiener Schnitzel when I'd been going through my Bockwurst & Kartoffelsalat phase, when we lived in Germany.  However, Veal Marsala had the additional attraction of being new to me.  Plus, we'd been after a bottle of Marsala wine for absolutely ages - and this gave me the perfect opportunity to finally track one down!

So - and I still have a small niggling regret that we didn't get the chance to do Wiener Schnitzels - I settled on Veal Marsala and the hunt for the wine was on.

Mise en place - including the elusive Marsala

Having checked out three local supermarkets and a couple of off licences, we had drawn a blank.  So what do you do, when you can't find what you're looking for in the shops these days?  Why, ask on Twitter, what else?  One of my lovely foodie friends pointed us in the direction of our local Sainsbury's - where we'd been already - but with directions as to what to look for.  There, hiding behind some other bottles, hubby found the elusive Marsala wine.  Success!

I had been giving the recipe some serious contemplation, involving researching so called "classic" versions of Veal Marsala and some rather less than "classic" versions.  I wanted to keep to a fairly classic representation of the recipe, but knew that I'd be cooking it in the slow cooker.  Now when Veal Marsala was first developed and recorded, slow cookers hadn't been invented.  Hence, there aren't very many recipes out there dedicated just to Veal Marsala in the slow cooker.  I knew I'd have to make some adaptations and adjustments to the traditional recipe.

However, as it turned out, the traditional recipe is remarkably simple.  How often does that happen?  Some of the best, classic, traditional recipes often turn out to involve just five or six ingredients.  I can understand this move towards "keeping it simple"!  So converting the recipe to be used with the slow cooker wasn't difficult.

Shallot, carrot, mushroom & tarragon

My recipe involves two large departures from the traditional.  Firstly, is the inclusion of some finely chopped mushroom at the mirepoix (ordinarily, celery, onion & carrots) stage.  I had found that mushroom goes so very well with veal, that I felt it was worth boosting the mushroom flavour from the button mushrooms.  Hence the addition of the finely chopped mushrooms which would ultimately just dissolve into the sauce/gravy and become an intensely mushroom background flavour.

Into the slow cooker - and forget about it for 4 hours

Secondly, is the inclusion of some tarragon herb.  Now, I will admit that this was an afterthought brought on by finding some surplus-to-requirements leftover tarragon in the fridge.  It just struck me that as both chicken and pork use tarragon to such good effect, that I couldn't see how it wouldn't be able to produce the same results with veal.

These two additions to the recipe increased the layers of flavour in the end result - and I thoroughly recommend them to you.

I had quite expected the veal escalopes to fall apart in the slow cooker , but in fact they were quite robust and held together very well.  They were, of course, meltingly tender and the button mushrooms were just a joy.  They had absorbed the flavour of the Marsala wine and were like little juicy flavour bombs - just scrumptious.

As predicted, the finely chopped mushroom had dissolved and wasn't in evidence, but had left a scaffolding of mushroom flavour that held that sauce up beautifully.  The tarragon was there, but not dominant in flavour - which was as I had hoped.  The lovely Marsala wine - which in its natural state tastes not unlike a fine sherry - was very definitely the dominant flavour in the sauce, which is as it should be.  Because of its inherently natural sweetness, the British Rose Veal is the perfect bedfellow for the Marsala wine - with the carrots and shallots adding points of savoury sweetness (if there is such a thing) along the way.  I was glad of the mushrooms and tarragon, as they stopped the dish from becoming too sweet and was pleased with the effect of the additional mushroom in the sauce.

On the whole, I think this was one of my most successful recipes involving British Rose Veal to date.

I served the veal with mashed potatoes, parsnip, carrot, swede, broccoli and brussels sprouts.  I may have got slightly carried away on the vegetable front there - but at least we got our five-a-day in! 

SLOW COOKER VEAL MARSALA   (serves 3)

Ingredients :

1 tbsp rapeseed oil
a knob of butter
500g British Rose Veal escalopes
2 banana shallots, quartered and sliced finely
4 chestnut mushrooms, chopped finely
1 large carrot, peeled, quartered and diced finely
a small bunch of parsley, chopped finely
2-3 sprigs of fresh tarragon, chopped finely
150g button mushrooms, cleaned and left whole
150ml Marsala wine
150ml veal stock (I used Essential Cuisine's veal stock - but chicken would do at a pinch)
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
a small amount (2 tsp approx) cornflour.

Method :

1.  Heat the butter and rapeseed oil in a frying pan and, once the butter has melted, brown the escalopes on both sides.  Remove to the slow cooker and turn to low.  Replace the lid.

2.  Add a little more rapeseed oil if necessary to the pan and add the shallots and cook on a moderate heat until the shallots are transparent and softened.

3.  Add the chopped mushrooms and carrots and continue to cook until the mushrooms have taken on the butter and oil and appear softened.

4.  Add the parsley and tarragon and stir through.

5.  Decant the whole lot into the slow cooker, add the button mushrooms and replace the lid.

6.  Allow the pan to heat up again and, once hot, add the Marsala wine and allow to frizzle for a moment or two, before adding the stock and a little sea salt and black pepper.

7.  Decant the mixture into the slow cooker and gently stir to combine evenly.  Replace the lid and turn to medium.  Forget about it for the next 4 hours.

8.  Once the time is up, gently remove the escalopes to a plate and add a little water to the cornflour in a small bowl - just enough to get the cornflour moving.

9.  Add half the cornflour to the slow cooker and stir briskly to prevent any lumps forming.  If the sauce requires further thickening, add the other half of the mixture until the sauce is at your preferred consistency.

10.  Re-introduce the escalopes to the sauce and replace the lid for some 5-10 minutes, just to bring the meat back up to temperature.

Serve with mashed potatoes and a selection of steamed vegetables.

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