Around the Kitchen Table - How to Make Chicken Marsala

Hey there, I'm Chef Dennis Littley, and today you're coming live from my kitchen for the premiere of our new show, Around the Kitchen Table. And my co-host today— well, not today, my co-host for the series is Susan Sarah, and she's going to be— I'm going to be turning it over to her in just a minute. And our guest today cooking is David Leopold. David's in his kitchen that he's jury-rigged so we can do this in front of a good camera situation. So I appreciate all your work on this, David. I know this isn't normally where you cook, but we're going to run with it. Thank you.

Can I do one shout out before we get going, Chef?

Sure.

I'd like to shout out to my mother. My mother's always asked me, David, what is it that you do? And Mom, this is what I do, and this one's for you.

Great. We'll send this one out to your mom especially then. Thank you, David.

Thank you.

All right. So Susan, I'm going to turn this over to you now and— Sure.

So hey, Chef, how's it going? Looks like you're ready to, you know, just give us all your secrets. You're going to give up all your secrets, right?

Well, you know, in the days of being a restaurant chef, back then, you know, we guarded our secrets like they were, you know, we didn't want to share anything. In fact, people I work for made me write a cookbook, and I left out just a little something out of each recipe.

Uh-huh.

Excellent, but it wouldn't be as good as if I made it. They go, "Oh, this is close, but not like Dennis made it." When I started food blogging, I changed my attitude completely about that, and I said, "When I share recipes, it's got to be as good as I can make it." I want to share these out there. I want people making this dish just the way I make it, and I want them to just moan in delight and be really, really happy with the food. That's when I stopped guarding as much and just sharing full recipes. Maybe it's the stage of my life where I'm not going back in the kitchen. I'm not worried. Maybe it's just that I changed my whole ideology of what I'm doing.

Isn't that funny? It's the same with me. I have my trade secrets, kitchen design. Designers, there are special tricks, you know, that we do that are— that make things, you know, really wonderful and different. And same thing with you. I am happy to share what I know and help people, help people have beautiful kitchens. So I just wanted to say hi, everybody. And I'm so excited to be here with Chef and David Leopold. I'm Susan Sarah. I'm a certified kitchen designer and a certified aging-in-place specialist. And I've had my own kitchen design firm on Long Island, as you can probably tell by my voice, for about— Long Island. Long Island, that's right, for about 25 years. So I have seen it all, and you know, as far as kitchens, and you know, the good thing is, the inspiring thing is, is I do hope— I know Chef and I, I speak for Chef as well, and I know we hope to inspire you. With our own, you know, it's such a soulful thing to sit down with a meal and to prepare a meal, whether it's a meal for one or with your, your loved ones, your friends, you know, a social thing, and then to enjoy the meal and to know it's an experience, right, Chef?

Absolutely. Dining isn't just about dinner itself. It's about all the components that come into play. You know, a lot of times when I was teaching cooking online, I mean, that's really how I got my jump on Google+ was when I was with ChefHangout.com. And we would sell date night classes. And people would come together, men and women, you know, spouses or boyfriend and girlfriend, and they would make a restaurant-style dinner in their home without having to go out. And enjoy the experience of making it together, save enough money to buy a bottle of wine, rent a movie, and still not cost what it would have if they'd gone out. So, you know, this is something else to bring into the home. These videos will be available and people will be able to watch them when they have time.

Yeah, I think that's— I think it's going to be, you know, like I say, inspiring and hopefully instill confidence and hopefully to just be able to change things up a little bit aesthetically, functionally, tastefully, and in a healthy way. So I think we have an awful lot to share. And David is just such a— you know what I call you? I call you a Renaissance man.

Oh my goodness.

And there's so much—

Is that a good thing?

It's a really good thing. I mean, the more I've gotten to know you, the more surprised I am at all the different places this is your, you know, you have your creativity. So, Chef, whenever you want to begin.

Okay, and then, you know, I'm really happy that we're doing this, Susan. And it's like you said, we're bringing together, you know, not just the food, but you're going to teach us about some of the other elements in the kitchen that go with it and make this experience even better. Coming down to maybe replacing some appliances in your home if that's possible, or changing the sink out, or also, you know, what dishes to serve on, what glasses to serve in, you know, what kind of accents can use, all the different pieces that go together and making your kitchen really a happy place because that is the focal point. One of the reasons we bought this house, we bought it in Orlando, was because of the kitchen, because the kitchen was centrally located in the center of the house. It was an open floor plan.. And I wanted it to be the focal point because when people come over, you know, that's where I shine and that's what I want to share with people. And you know, when we share food with each other, it just doesn't get any better than that. That is the real socialization that when we come together as a group. And you know, whether this group is maybe spread across the country because you can do this via Hangout with your friends and relatives. You know, you can get together and make something together. You know, you could pop up a meal and then sit down and eat it.

You know, Chef, I was not aware that that's what you wanted in a kitchen when you looked for that house, because that does seem to be what most people want now when they're looking for new homes. I know my realtor friends tell me that when they have an ad that has open kitchen in it or open floor plan, That's the one that gets the people to, you know, I don't think we, we don't want our kitchens closed off anymore as they used to be. Would you agree?

Absolutely. I mean, I've worked in such small kitchens, you know, it doesn't matter what size it is. But the one thing that really drew this to me, and I was lucky enough, my wife knew how much I wanted this kitchen. So she wasn't real thrilled with the house, but she did buy it because of the kitchen and she knew how happy I would be with it. You know, now we just have to turn it into a a showplace. We can really start inviting a lot of people over and have some fun here in the house. And, you know, like I said, it's the focal points, but it's just so nice to be able to have people to the left here, the right of you, and just, you know, work in the center. This island is so big. You know, I'm used to working in maybe a quarter of the space. So this is great.

Yeah, I'm sure. And, you know, David is probably working in— lives and works in the ultimate small The Ultimate Tiny Kitchen. And I know I have experience with small kitchens because I had an apartment in New York. My daughter had several apartments in New York, and I have pictures. I actually have, if we get to it, I have an album of small kitchens, and I actually won an award for designing a very, very small kitchen. I love, I love tiny kitchens. I think the challenge of making it perfectly functional in a tiny space is really exciting, and David You, I mean, you are just cooking joyfully in your small kitchen every single day. Am I right?

You are absolutely right, and you can't get much smaller than what I have, Susan.

I know. You know, you clicked on the right words there, cooking joyfully, because if you like to cook and you enjoy what you're doing, your meal will always be better. It doesn't matter what kind of kitchen you have. I mean, I've gone into houses where the people, you know, really had no clue about their kitchen. It was beautiful, but it was— they didn't use it because they didn't enjoy cooking. You know, it wasn't a meeting place for them. It wasn't a place to really enjoy the experience of cooking and eating together. It was just physically beautiful. So it doesn't matter how big it is. Like I said, I've worked in smaller kitchens and the food was still as good. So, you know, it's just now in my golden years I'm finally able to have a kitchen that I really like. It is what it is. Enjoy what you have and just a little love to cook. I'm ready to get started if you are, guys. I'm certainly ready.

Let's go at it.

Okay. This is one of my favorite meals to make, one of my wife's favorite meals. I make it a couple times a month usually because it's so easy to make and because it's delicious. There's a couple keys to the recipe. One of them is the marshmallows. The Marsala you use. And in just about all the recipes you get, people will tell you to buy dry Marsala. And dry Marsala just doesn't have the right flavor profile for this dish. So, you know, I tell people to buy a sweet Marsala if there's an option. If there's not an option, like I buy a Marsala called Pellegrino when I'm feeling like spending that much money. It's not that it's real expensive, but it's about 3 times the price of Crabari, and that is what I'm using today. It doesn't quite have the depth of flavor and the richness, but for a third of the price for a bottle twice the size, you know, we have Marsala a lot more often because of that. So that's what we're using today. Crabari. Crabari, you got it. And I have the bigger version of it, and you know, it's not that much more. So it's a great sauce, and you know, I had some questions in the first time, because this is the second go-around for us when we're trying to premiere our show because of the funny stuff that happened last week with Hangouts, was, you know, I'm a vegetarian. I don't eat chicken. Okay, well fine. You know, now granted I'm not as well versed in vegetarian dishes, but this sauce does not have to be made just with chicken. A lot of times I'll make it just to serve with mashed potatoes or rice. Or to go with other dishes. So it doesn't have to be with chicken. So if you want to do maybe a tofu seasoned up really well or a seitan or something else vegetarian or just mushrooms and other vegetables, this would be a delicious entrée. You can use this sauce as a base for that. So you don't have to be a carnivore to enjoy this sauce. And it can be made vegetarian very easily by using a vegetable stock instead of a chicken stock. And then using the ingredients you like. Now one of the components that we're using is mushrooms. I get the Baby Bellas whenever I can, when they look good. Sometimes you go to the market and they just look a little sad, they look a little wet, and you don't want to use them. You want to find a fresher mushroom. I don't trim the end off. I just wash it, and then when I slice— one thing about slicing, you don't want to chop, you don't want to attack. You want to keep the point of your knife down And you want to just slice like that, okay?

Chef, can I ask you a question?

Sure.

Now, I have heard conflicting things about washing mushrooms versus just sort of scrubbing them.

It depends how dirty the mushroom is, how much soil is in it. I'll rinse them. I generally don't scrub them. Perhaps I should. I'm not saying not to if that's what you do. You can peel them too. I don't go to all that trouble. I'm pretty much— maybe I'm living dangerously, but I use the mushrooms. They're cultivated mushrooms. They're generally grown in just a couple places in the country, and I'm trusting, trusting Mushroom counts, and these are all coming to us nice and fresh and delicious and ready to use. So I mean, I don't go to a lot of trouble washing them. I'll get the grit off of them. I don't want that, but I don't scrub and scrub.

I think the soil sometimes adds a little flavor to it.

I don't know about that. David, do you still have your headphones on? Because I'm getting a little bit of an echo.

I do not. Well, the headphone wasn't working. Let me maybe close the door over here.

Okay. Well, that's coming off of the computer. Computer. And if you guys have any questions about the Marsala sauce as we're going, please just leave them in the comment tracker. I think we had a couple of questions already, Susan, that need to be answered in there.

Yes, yes. We have, let's see, here's one. Oops, is it coming up? Yeah, here it is. Okay. Hi, Chef Dennis Littley. Yes, by the way, I repainted one of my kitchen walls because the light didn't look right. Susan Sarah, a happy place. Yes. And you know, briefly I'll tell you that Some people now enjoy painting a featured wall, like just say a wall in the breakfast area, in the dining room, just one wall a different color, maybe a dramatic color, and that can really, as I say, it can add drama. So, you know, that can be fun.

Susan, how about a customized wall?

There you go, just like I did in one of my kitchens, yes. That's a mural. I think murals are big. I think they're going to come on strong. So I don't want to keep you two from the cooking job. Whoops.

Okay. Well, let's move on then.

All right.

What I'm using today is I'm using an induction cooker, and they do make big tops for that. And the great thing about an induction cooker is they're really portable, and they're not very expensive. This one was off of Amazon. I think it was about $80, $85. Of course, I had to buy a special pan for it, a magnetic pan. This again was, I think, about $25 or $30 on Amazon. It's a Duxtop, which I had never heard of before, but it's really heavy and has been a nice easy pan to clean. I'm using induction. If you don't have it, if you have gas, if you have— my other stove is a flat-top electric. Whatever you have to cook on, that will work fine. This is about the dish. I'm just going to fire up my stove here.

I'm actually using an induction cooker also, Chef.

Really? That's great.

Yes.

You know, I like them. They heat as fast as gas, and you know, you really can't ask for much more. It's kind of power. It boils water fast. I was cooking something on it., and the pan gets hot relatively simply. David, I'm still hearing stuff go off for you. It's not coming off the— your computer, and that's going to affect— so we're either going to have to mute you or you're going to have to put headphones on.

Is that better?

Let me see. Yes. No, I'm still getting a little bit, but it's not as bad. I can still hear myself talking. Your headphones were working before, it was just the microphone.

Okay, let me see how that goes.

Bear with us, guys. This is— new to us, and we're trying to get all these pieces together. This is new for David, cooking in a Hangout. He's usually at his computer easily just talking. We're asking him to come out of his comfort zone a bit. I haven't been in front of a camera cooking in a while, so this is new for me too, again. It's been a while. The nice thing with these induction cookers is that once you take the pan off, the surface cools down a lot quicker. This is still a little warm, but it's not that hot. That's the heat coming from the pan being on it, not from the unit itself. I'm just not going to let this pan get too hot because believe me, it heats up pretty quick. Now, Lori just pointed out that we have our guests mute when not talking, but with this kind of a situation, it's a little hard because you're not sitting right there. You're moving around. And this— my wireless headset, the microphone doesn't work real well, so I'm using the microphone with my camera., and I'm using the headset just to keep the echo down. So it's whatever we have to do in these situations to try and overcome the problems that we have. So now it's actually shut itself off after being off the top for that long. So that's another good feature with some of these induction tops. I'm anxious to see a real one someday.

And Chef, there's another comment that from Lori Saliata, that says, I know some folks don't use water to rinse the mushrooms because they absorb the water. I think that's, that's the, you know, what people think. I think that's a concern. I just dust mine off, so people do different things.

Yeah, you know, I don't wash every, all the different types of vegetables as much. Depends on what they are, where they were. Just like berries, you rinse them, you have to be careful, you don't want to get them too waterlogged. Romaine, you know, I buy heads or hearts of romaine, so sometimes they're not as dirty, triple washed. So a lot of things are a little easier to use out of the package. There's some outer— some vegetables with outer material that you want to clean a little bit better before you do use them. I don't know if we lost David.

Oh, did we?

While you're there—

I see him.

Dionne Baldwin says she's going to ask Santa for an induction burner for Christmas. Dionne, they're really nice to have. You know, I have a bag that I had from my Food Buzz days from a very ruined building in Tampa, just so that mine sits in and it just gets toted around. I mean, you could take it somewhere with you if you wanted to do a demo. Easy enough, they plug in, they don't need 220, they just plug into 110 and they heat great. Oh, and Kim Vige is in the audience. We had, we were nice enough to have dinner together the other night in Winter Park and she had chicken marsala there, so she says she's sure mine is better than what she had.

You know, Chef, I'm wondering, do you have certain, you know, I From what I know, chefs wear these clogs, they wear these special shoes, and, you know, they wear them for hours and hours. Do you, you know, what's the kind of comfort for when you have a long cooking session?

What kind of—

I mean, do you use a mat, like a gel mat?

You gotta have mats. You know, I was gonna get some gel mats for in here. I haven't gotten them yet, but I haven't been spending that kind of time in the kitchen either. But I have pretty thick rubber mats. You just want something to really cushion that so you're not constantly on— because most kitchens have tile floors, it's laid on concrete.

That's right.

No gif. So you need those mats.

Yeah.

I actually wore clogs for the last— I never wore them before. In the last 8 years, I started wearing clogs and they worked out pretty good. Again, you need something that feels comfortable on your feet. Foot, you know, every now and then I'd slip out of it, which is a little embarrassing, but you turn and your foot, your shoe stays there, so you hopefully nobody, not too many people saw it, but they were probably one of the more comfortable shoes I had worn, and you know, the whole big problem with the shoe is not to make it last longer than it should, you know, that is probably the most important article of wear of, not clothing, but something we wear. Yeah, you know, generally wear until it falls apart.

Yeah, and you know, I don't think many people really give it that much of serious thought, but I bet you could walk a couple of miles back and forth when you're preparing a meal.

Absolutely, or, you know, if your administrator's office is, you know, a quarter of a mile down, it's a bunch of halls too. They call you in constantly. There's a lot more to it than that. All right, Dave, are we ready to go again?

Ja, can you hear me now okay?

Perfect. Perfect. All right. Let's get this fire back going underneath the pan. Turn it on. I have mine set at half. I haven't used it on full power yet. Mine is set to 5. It's going to give me what would equate to a medium-high heat. On my stove. That is where we want to cook. Now the important thing with sauté— now I use all olive oil to sauté. What I do is I keep— I have a big bottle of it under there, a gallon. I have one of these squirt bottles, and that makes it easier for me to control how much I'm using. Also, instead of pouring and recapping or having something maybe pretty on the counter that you want to use,. But this way I can just squirt it in the pan. I tend to probably use a little bit less than I would otherwise. And get it ready. You let your pan get a little hot. I could have let it get a little hotter before I put the oil in it. Here I have some flour that I'm going to dredge the chicken in. I'm going to put some black pepper in the flour. I have some sea salt. I'm going to put some sea salt in the flour. You want to season the flour probably a little bit more than you think it should. For me, this does a couple things. This protects the meat a little bit. I have chicken thighs here, boneless chicken thighs. I did not trim them. You can. The fat, some of it's going to dissolve. Maybe for my new show, Eating Healthy, we'll trim them. In this case, this is restaurant style. I'm not going to trim them as much. I dredge them in the flour. The flour, and the flour protects the meat and also helps make the sauce. Now you can hear it. I don't know if you can hear it sizzling, but it is sizzling a little bit. So I'm using chicken thighs. This is going to be for 2 people. And these really, they're not super heavy, so I'm making 2 for each. I need a little bit more oil in here. And I'm just going to dredge each piece. In my seasoned flour.

So no egg? You don't use egg?

No, not for this. This isn't breading. This is just to help make the sauce and to help protect the meat a little bit when we are sautéing it so it doesn't stick. It doesn't sear as much. But you know, it's not a breading in any way, shape, or form. And while this is searing. We're going to let it sear. I'm just going to move it around a little bit to make sure I have enough oil under it. A little bit more. See, now I can come in with a bottle and I can hit it where it needs to be. I'm kind of an anal retentive person when it comes to cleaning.

Oh, look at that! That's impressive. Now, I'll tell you, Chef, when I cook, And when I cook, I cook. And I make a mess everywhere. And then I clean it up. So because I just, you know, but people do, it's interesting. And you know what, you might design a kitchen around how, you know, how people do the cooking process, how people go through the process. Interesting.

How messy you are.

Well, you know, I used to really be super messy. I work in this kitchen. Where I had absolutely no room, and that's when I started learning to be cleaner. And now, like, people come over to eat and I'll make dinner. It's always whoever in the house, whoever cooks, has to clean up. Well, I rarely leave a lot of stuff for my wife. She did cooking— she tried to cook for me for a while just to break the monotony, and she would get 5 or 6 pans dirty making 3 things, and I would be there scrubbing the pots.

Oh, that's me.

That's me.

Yeah. And then I change my mind after I put something in something. Oh no, I'd rather have this pot. And yes, so I relate.

So if you don't want to use thighs here, if you want to use breasts, you can use chicken breasts. If you want to use chicken tenders, you can use chicken tenders. The only thing I'm going to tell you about like these thighs aren't terribly thick, but they are. Sometimes you get these breasts that are just really, really thick. You might want to split them in half so that they don't take as long to cook. And while this is cooking, I got one little tip for you too. You saw I had a cutting board. I just cut a couple mushrooms just to show you the technique. But whenever I cut, I never just lay the cutting board flat. I always put a damp cloth under. Here I just have have like a handi-wipe under it so the cutting board doesn't slide.

Oh, a secret!

That is one of our safety tips.

One of your secrets.

It's kind of sautéed and it's searing nicely. You can see a little bit of the flour forming a little skin on it, but you know, not enough, not like a bread. So don't ever think of this as a term of bread. This is anytime I put something in a sauté pan, it's going in flour. Okay, that's just for meat, not for seafood. How you doing, David? Looks like I'm doing okay. Sounds good to me. I'm using chicken—

they're chicken breasts, but they're tenders, and I bought them at my local Kroger store.

Organic chicken breasts. These are organic chicken thighs. Supposed to be cage-free organic. So meats are one of the things that I always buy organic. Cage-free, especially in chicken, eggs cage-free, much better taste. And that's really, you know, I don't want to say it's because it's healthy. That's a, for me, that's an added bonus, but it tastes better.

So does that mean that you get all of your meat at the butcher?

No, we don't, you know, I've always used supermarkets. I just buy organic. I shop a lot in Publix down here and they have a GreenWise section of meat. Okay. You know, that's most of the time what I do use. And I shopped at Wegmans before, they had a nice line of organic meat. They have beef, they have chicken. I don't eat beef, my wife does. They have the chicken. So now we're going to move on with this real quick. I have it just started to sauté on the other side. It's searing. Now because these are a little thicker, I waited. If these had been thin, I might have added my mushrooms a little sooner. But now I'm going to put in my sliced baby bellas. And again, they can be plain white button mushrooms. Just use a mushroom of your choice, whatever you like. If you don't like mushrooms, leave them out. Okay, just remember mushrooms are a fungi to be around, so you want to give them a chance. My bad joke for the day. Yeah, I keep forgetting we're not live, so when nobody laughs, I can't take it quite as badly.

I'll laugh. I'll laugh for you.

Mushrooms do soak up quite a bit, and sometimes you might find you need just a little bit more oil. That may look like I'm dousing the stuff in oil, but being able to control it this way, I'm actually not using as much as you might think.

And tell us again what kind of oil you're using, Chef.

I am using extra virgin olive oil.

Okay.

I buy— well, actually I buy 3 kinds of oil now. I buy extra virgin olive oil, I buy a plain vegetable oil for baking, and I buy coconut oil. Coconut oil I don't use as much in food. Sometimes in baking I will use it depending upon what I'm making. It fries well. I've made buffalo sauce with coconut oil. You can't even tell the difference. Not quite as thick as butter, but it's still good. So those are the only things you'll ever find in the house oil-wise.

You know, I go to the store and Olive oil now is much like wine, and I don't know if I should stick with the less expensive extra virgin olive oils or if I should go with the more expensive ones. I'm getting confused these days.

Well, for normal usage, any good extra virgin olive oil will do. All right? If you get some really good olive oil, you want to use that at the very, very end. If you're using it maybe on a salad or you're using it to drizzle on something, that's what these really good olive oils are for. You never cook with them because you're not going to taste it. Just like cooking with butter now. You're not going to taste it. It's going to be lost. Whatever flavor profile you want, say you have some olive oil from Tuscany that's just so nutty and peppery, you just love the way it tastes. When you make a plate of pasta and you have whatever kind of sauce, a red sauce on it or a white sauce on it, not a cream sauce, but that kind of sauce, then you might want to drizzle some of that really good olive oil on top of the pasta before you go to eat it. Then you're going to taste that nuttiness, that flavor. Anyhow, for dipping bread in, those kind of things. That's when you bring out the good olive oil, when you're going to taste it.

And you know, that makes sense. And isn't that the same concept with fresh herbs as well?

Yes, yes. Dry are going to have a lot of times the flavor that we're most familiar with. Fresh herbs aren't always going to taste quite as robust depending up on what they are. But they're going to look better and they're going to add a more subtle flavor to it. And again, you want to put them in closer to the end so you can taste. So now my chicken is pretty much cooked. It's just about done. Now if I was in a restaurant, I may not have even let it go quite this far. But it's almost done. So now I'm going to use my Marsala. And you're going to pour Marsala in And if this was gas, this would ignite. Okay, so I put in my Marsala, and all the amounts are there in the recipe. And then we're just going to let it heat back up a little bit, and it's going to come to a boil, and that's going to burn the alcohol off.

Hey, Chef. Yeah.

What—

now, okay, about igniting, could you light a match? On an end? Yeah. And why would you do it, and why does it matter?

For show.

Oh, it's for show, okay.

That's all. It'll burn the alcohol off either way. It's a way to know that it's burned off, but really, no. You know, I'll light it sometimes just for fun, you know, and sit there and go, "Fire, fire!" But other than that, there's not a lot of big reason to do it. It's just a habit that you have. Yes, when you see me pull— I'm not pulling too hard here, but I would pull a little harder to flip it.

I could never do that. I can't do that.

When I pull, that's when it would ignite. On the pull, you're going to catch the gas and it's going to ignite.

Boom.

It's going to come over. Yeah, it takes a while. When they taught me how to do that, the guy stood back for a long time. So anyway, all right, now It's pretty much done. I'm going to turn my heat down a little bit. I'm going to turn it down to a low-medium. Now what I have here is I have chicken stock. If you're making this vegetarian, you can use a vegetable stock. If you're not using chicken, you just want to make the sauce, start with the mushrooms, leave the chicken out. If you want to make it to pour over, serve something, crispy piece of seitan or tofu. So now I'm going to add some chicken stock in here. Now I buy a base and I reconstitute it, but there's a lot of good brands that just ready-to-use chicken stock out there that you can use. If you belong to a big box club like Sam's, Costco, or BJ's, a lot of times you can get pound jars of chicken base, beef base there, and you can use those. Ah, so how we doing?

How's it going, David?

I think it's going well.

Where's the small swig after pouring the Marsala on the chicken, Chef Dennis, from Alexandria? Alexandria, the secret is I don't like Marsala except in a sauce. I'll say it. People call for Marsala in some desserts and I go, oh my God, I could never. You know, in a sabayon, in an Italian version, Not one of my favorites. If I'll pull out a bottle of limoncello here, I might do a shot of it with it. I make something with it.

And Jenny Field says, do you flour the chicken to lend some body to the sauce, Chef Dennis?

Yes.

The flour went in for two reasons: to help protect it when it sears, and also it's going to transfer to the pan and it'll help with the natural thickener for your sauce. So those are the two reasons reasons you really use it. You know, it's— there's a method to the madness of cooking, and that would be absolutely restaurant style. So thank you for bringing that up, Jenny. And I see Larry Fournier is in the house too. Boy, I'm glad to see you here, Larry. Thank you for stopping by.

And you know, I'd like to just take a quick moment and mention the portable induction cooktop, that when you put that in It's good just to have anyway because when you think of, say, holidays or social occasions in the kitchen, you can add an entirely different workstation for someone, for anyone. It's a way— having a portable cooktop like that, it enables you to expand your kitchen. And all of a sudden now you have a much bigger cooktop. Put it over there on the other side of the kitchen, let someone do their specialty item, and it's just— it adds flexibility to the kitchen. So I love those.

Yep, Susan, I use mine every day.

Oh, they're great. I mean, in the old days, back when I first started in business dining, these were like $2,000 apiece. And you know, you get 4 of them, 5 of them, and you go out to do an event. And I go, they were gold. And then they started to come down and they were $800 to $1,000. And I started looking for one because of my shows, not because of the shows, because of the classes, because I'd always have my back to the camera because I'd be at the stove. And I'd try setting the cameras up here and the lighting just never really worked. So I got this and I was like, oh my God. And in fact it was a Christmas present. And when my wife went to order it and she saw it was only $80, $80. She was so upset with me because she thought it was going to be a $300 or $400 ticket item that she was getting me for Christmas. No, it's $80. That's it. That's what I want. You know, don't spend— don't get the $150 one because it's not going to do any more.

And you know, I'll tell you one more thing. When I was in this business, in the kitchen design business, in the very late '80s, early '90s, there was a time when induction cooktops, the industry tried to get them into the marketplace and no one would buy them. And the reason they wouldn't buy them is because they would have to change all their pots and pans. So I think— I don't know what happened, but I think the energy efficiency and the safety and the power, you know, all came together much later. So they are just, you know, so, so popular now.

The one I bought, Susan, was $99 for the induction cooker and the pan and the sauté pan.

Yeah, well worth it. Well worth it.

Absolutely. And the beauty of them is they are so portable and you can set them up just about anywhere. I mean, you can have a rolling cart as long as you You can lock the wheels on it. I'm cooking this down. I'm reducing. This is what's called reducing. If it would work for me as well as it does the sauce, I wouldn't be looking this hefty here. Reducing my sauce is cutting the size down. It's thickening it. It's bringing the flavors to a stronger level by minimizing them a little bit. This is when I season a little bit. I'm just going to put in a little bit of granulated onion. A little bit more black pepper. I don't like white pepper. I never use it. I don't think it has enough flavor, you know, unless it's something you really feel like you don't want to see it, then you can use white pepper.

Now, Chef, what about garlic? Is garlic ever appropriate with Marsala?

I don't like it. I think it's too strong for Marsala. Again, it's It's a personal taste. If you like it— if you wanted to use garlic in a Marsala, I would probably roast some fresh garlic and get it— my wife cracks up every time I say it's sweet. She just doesn't understand that I think it's sweet. But you get more of that sweet flavor from garlic when you roast it. Then I might add it to it in chunks. But I just— again, you know, old habits die hard. This is what I was taught for Marsala, so this is This is how I do it. Now, I know I don't have it on the recipe itself, but this is a very versatile dish. Say I want to change this up a little bit. I'm going to put some chopped tomatoes in here. I'm going to add some baby spinach. Cool. This is a dish I used to call a Marsalina. It's just a little adaption. I'll tell you what else goes really, really good. In Chicken Marsala is pepperoni.

Huh, that's a new one.

Wow.

Pepperoni is so good in a Marsala. So one night you have Chicken Marsala, next time you make it, you throw some vegetables, a different little bit of flavor in it. And then when I go to tighten my sauce up, this is the only time I use the evil butter.

Look at you taking that with your hands.

Oh, that's old habits die hard.

I'm not doing it with my hands, Susan.

Butter goes into the flour.

Oh, that's— wow, I love it.

And this is called a beurre meunier.

Oh, that's what that is.

So now when I go to thicken my sauce, I put the butter and the flour from that into it, and then I'm going to stir it around a little bit. That's going to thicken my sauce.

I have another question just to throw you for another loop. What do you think about sautéing shallots?

Shallots are fine if you like the flavor of them. Shallots could be used in this if you want shallots. I don't think, again, the flavor of the Marsala is really what you want to be prevalent. We use mushrooms in this for a couple of reasons. Mushrooms go naturally with the brown sauce. They're a nice addition to it. It's a nice flavor enhancement. Generally in a restaurant when we use mushrooms, we use them as a filler. I've got an expensive protein here and I've got a very inexpensive filler, the mushrooms. Just like the tomatoes and the spinach here. I'm adding volume to the dish. Now, this is something you don't have to do, but if you do, I use a little bit of heavy cream, like about a teaspoon. This heavy cream changes the texture and just changes the flavor ever so slightly. You saw I didn't use very much. It was just enough. Now with chicken. You can let it cook a little, especially the thighs. It's not going to hurt it as it reduces. I have quite a bit of sauce here because I always seem to not make enough. We love the sauce. If I serve it over rice, if I serve it with mashed potatoes or risotto, you want enough of this sauce to really go with it.

Chef, would you say that cooking it with chicken thighs, I mean, you really can't overcook chicken thighs compared to chicken breasts. Would you agree or not? They always just have such a nicer texture.

They start to almost seem like they fall apart before they get tough on you.

Yes, yes.

That's the beauty of them. But again, if you don't want the thigh and you want to stick with chicken breasts, just don't cook them as long or Take them out while your sauce is reducing. Ah. Now if you want to put a plate down here, feel free. Now you can let your sauce reduce without fear of the chicken overcooking. If you're working with seafood— now I don't do seafood marsalas, but say it was another kind of a sauce and you want— the sauce reduced, take that protein out of the pan, let it rest, and then when you're ready to serve, then you can put it back. That's as simple as that. And then this is going to be for dinner tonight, which will be in a little while, and I'll make something to go with it. So I'm just going to get rid of a little bit of this.

And I have to tell you that Ellen Bellometti says Wow, very sexy Chef Dennis with chef dress, with your chef— I don't know, I don't remember what it's called, but I know there's a name for it.

Chef coat. It's the chef coat.

One of my chopped liver suits, Susan.

No, oh, look at you. No, you are— you're perfect.

Chopped liver, how appropriate.

You're perfect. But you know, you know, too, Chef, you know, when I always feel like there's one moment almost when if you cook the chicken breast, the white meat of chicken, too long, that's it. You know, you've almost ruined it. It's tough. Don't you feel like there's such a nuance of when white meat is done with chicken?

Absolutely. And you know, chicken thighs have become the in thing. I mean, that's all all I ever really liked to eat. The breast would always be dried out. In a restaurant, they use breast for everything. Over the last couple years, all of a sudden, people realize that chicken thighs are really the more flavorful piece of chicken. Plus, they used to be less expensive. I say used to be. In most cases, they still are. When I was buying them from a wholesaler, they were almost the same price. In the supermarket, You know, they gouge you for chicken breasts. It's ridiculous how much more they cost than, you know, if I was to buy them wholesale. But as a wholesale item, they were almost the same. And they just lend themselves so much more. And the boneless, skinless ones are just wonderful. Like, I'll buy bone-in with skin when I grill, but for the most part, I never put them in a sauté pan anymore because they take too long. These cook so fast. These were done pretty much before I added everything into them. It's really a quick thing. We have a question here. I'm going to pull it up from Kim Boltman. It's a good one because I was going to address this anyway. She wants to know, "How long does this hold or does it need to be served immediately?" Depending upon when you say how long. You could make this and let it sit for probably about half an hour before you finished it without any problems at all. What I would do, like if you were expecting a party, I would sauté the breasts ahead of time and then chill them down. Or the thighs. Say you took all your chicken before I did the sauce. Do your chicken, sear them off, get them a nice color to them. Say you're doing a dinner party. Take them and put them in a casserole dish and put a little chicken base, chicken stock into the dish, cover it up, put it in the refrigerator, and then tonight when your guests are coming over, all you have to do is make the sauce. All right? So that makes it a little quicker, makes it a little easier. You can cook your chicken ahead of time, finish it in the oven, and then build yourself a nice sauce like this. You can leave it in the casserole dish. You can leave it in into something or transfer it to something you want to serve it in. Say you're having a buffet and you're not plating it, and then you could put that into something else, make a nice amount of sauce, and then just pour it over your chicken and let your guests serve themselves. So this is something you can do ahead of time. It's great for parties because it's easy to make and it'll hold and it's delicious. I think it's a win-win-win.

Yeah. Hey, Chef, I wanted to bring David in for a moment because I wanted to talk I want to talk a little, just for a moment, about his lifestyle. Now, David, you're in a tiny kitchen, but yet you're cooking up a storm. I don't know if you're cooking up a storm every single night, but you have limited storage. I'm sure you have limited appliances, you have limited counter space. How do you keep from being frustrated with the cooking process, or, you know, how do you choose what to store with the limitations you have with your kitchen?

Actually, I've got a really— you can't see it— I have a really good-sized cabinet over here. So anything I wanted to store, I could store over there. I have very little cabinet space in itself, so I need something like that. But that's the perfect size for me. And, you know, I live by myself, so you adapt, you do what you have to do. You figure those things out, Susan, it's not that difficult.

Yeah, no, go ahead.

How did yours come out, David? Is it done or?

Yeah, well, like you said, the chicken was done pretty quickly. I think my sauce needs a little bit more cooking time. It tastes fine, but should it be on the thick side, Chef, or? I guess that depends upon how much crabaree I put in, how much marsala I put in.

The other thing that we didn't talk about too is when you let it sit and serve. Say I'm going to come back to this and I'm going to let it reheat. When I go to reheat this up a little bit, I'm going to hit it with just a little bit more marsala. Remember we talked about the last flavor you put in is what you're going to taste. If you hit it with just a little bit more of the marsala, masala. And in the recipe I tell you to reserve a little bit at the end when you go to sit down because you might be making this, if you're making this with the show and it's not time to eat yet, you may want to chill the whole thing and come back. It's going to thicken up as it chills. Remember that too. And you may need a little bit more stock to begin with. Once everything starts to sit, it will thicken up. But hit it with a little bit more masala right before you go to serve it, right as you're heating it up the last time, just to give it a little bit more flavor. The sauce itself, it depends. This is great over pasta too. If you did this, if I was going to serve this over pasta, I might cut these thighs up a little bit into more of a strip size. This is great with roast pork, this sauce, with a pork tenderloin, with a stuffed pork. The sauce consistency, this is a little thin right now. It's like a gravy. A rule of thumb on this is if you put a sauce on a plate and you run your finger through it and it doesn't fill right in, that's about the right consistency for it. You don't want it to be so runny, but you don't want it to be so thick that it's gummy either.

Hey, Chef, what do you think about serving that with fettuccine?

Any pasta you like.

Actually, a wider noodle is better for something like This is what I was thinking.

Yeah, fettuccine or, you know, some of the different, different wider Italian noodles that they make. You know, I can't think of it right now. I have some in my storage area, but different kind of sauces cling better. So that would be great for it. But I mean, it goes— like, I wouldn't serve this with penne or that kind of a shape. Yeah, no, definitely a noodle and a wider noodle. I mean, you can serve this over egg noodles. And it would be fine. You know, it's just something that the sauce can really adhere to. We love it with mashed potatoes, with a nice garlic mash then if you want to, or just plain mash.

Oh, I love mashed potatoes. I love the idea of mashed potatoes.

It's really good with mashed potatoes. Or rice, it depends. Like I said, this is something that we'll eat a little more often because it's so fast to make. It's not a big deal. I can throw other ingredients in there. You could put broccoli in this if you want. You could put some asparagus in there if you want. There's a lot of different things you can throw in there. It's adaptable. It's easy. It's a quick dinner. Like I said, these are restaurant-style meals that you would get. I would dress this up a little bit more for you. Maybe as we move along in these episodes of shows, I will actually show you a finished serving. I would need a a side product or how we would serve it. The other thing is to have a little parsley in the house, Italian parsley, just to chop up as a garnish. Think about garnishes we can serve these with to make them a little prettier. But just think about going in the kitchen with your loved one and doing this. Or you don't have time to cook. This is so fast. It beats the heck out of going through that drive-through. It really does. And it's not that difficult to make. And once you learn the art of sauté, which is what we just did— this is sauté, all right? It's not rocket science.

Well, I'm really glad you gave me permission to just put my fingers in the butter.

Absolutely.

Just grab the butter.

And you know what? You want to taste the sauce?

There you go.

Okay, I won't do this in front of my guests. But if I'm cooking for myself and my wife, you know, it's fine. And I wash my hands so much that it's— I'm wondering sometimes if there's any skin left on them. But yeah, put your fingers in the butter. It's like, you know, run through the sand. Have fun with food. Don't be afraid of it.

And you know, there's another thing, Chef. What about making that in, say, a nice-looking Le Creuset type of, you know, that low shallow, they have a big low shallow, and then you just bring it to the table.

What about—

what do you think about that?

Absolutely. And that's why I said, you know, take your chicken and cook your chicken all up ahead of time, layer it nicely in a pan. You can keep it done, you can just put it in a very low oven and keep it warm, and then make your sauce, make the sauce, and then just pour the sauce over top of it. You could even put a little layer of noodles under it if you wanted to, if it's going to be a buffet item. But you know, you can do it all and serve it very nicely, you know, on a table for a buffet. It's just gorgeous and it's unexpected. You know, it's not what people usually put out, just sliced meat and gravy. Okay, this is Chicken Marsala. You know what else goes really good in this? Jumbo lump crab meat.

Oh!

Wow.

Okay, then we're kicking it up, you know.

Then you got—

now we're going to plate it then. We're not going to serve it in a buffet. But I mean, it's a very versatile, versatile dish. And the sauce, like I said, if you don't want to serve it with chicken, you make the sauce and you serve it just with mashed potatoes, or you serve it with a stuffed pork loin or roast pork.

You know, you're inspiring me so much because I keep, you know, asking you if this or that can go with it. I don't know, this came to mind too. What do you think about— this may not be good— what do you think about roasted peppers?

Roasted peppers are good. You know, to me, in a Marsala, they're just not something I would put in. I would lean towards sun-dried tomatoes first.

Okay.

But roasted peppers are me are better in a white sauce. And when I say white, I don't necessarily mean cream, but in a just a stock kind of sauce, an oil and stock sauce, a northern kind of sauce, or southern, I mean a southern kind of sauce, not a northern. They just, they are very robust and flavorful. That's why when I say pepperoni, pepperoni is really flavorful and it's the flavors that really rock this dish. But for me, that doesn't mean if you like peppers, by all means put them in.

Yeah, no, I can see that. And there's a comment from Kim Boltman. She says, "It's great to see Chef Dennis Littley in an environment he's so comfortable with after a lifetime experience. Thank you for sharing your expertise." How's your dish coming along, David Leopold?

Looks like it. Well, it tastes wonderful. It needs to get a little thicker, I think, but the taste is fine. Thank you for the blends, Chef. It worked out very well.

That Marsala is really great. Elena had asked a question if I used Marsala, and yes, I did. She also came up with a pasta I could not remember, and it's pappardelle. Thank you very much. I do have some there. I use them for meat ragus. And they would be wonderful with this as well. And she also said, "What do you think this plate with which wine?" What would I drink with this? That's a good question. We're going to have to bring a sommelier on at some time to help us with that because I don't know a lot about wines, quite frankly. You, Susan, any ideas on that or anyone in our audience have a comment?

You know, I— whenever— I'll tell you something and this This is based on, you know, no real knowledge, but whenever I eat Italian, I just go for a Chianti Classico, and that seems to go well. I love Chianti Classico. Always, always.

Susan, that goes well with anything.

Okay, that's why.

It goes well with anything.

What was the movie? Like the little Chianti with the fava beans and—

Oh yes, Silence of the Lambs.

Silence of the Lambs. I always remember that. I'm not a big wine drinker anymore. I enjoy it from time to time. My wine, my Italian wine of choice is Prosecco when I do drink it, and I will drink that with just about anything I eat. That is my favorite sparkling beverage from the Veneto region. So, you know, a nice Chianti, a nice Barbaresco— Barbaresco, is that right? Yeah, I think so. Something red, probably. But, you know, again, it doesn't matter. Whatever you like to drink. I think the days of us saying red or white specifically, you know, for meat or fish are gone. It's pretty much what you like to drink with it. There's some very educating people that would say otherwise. And when you know better, then okay. You know, it's just like, to me, it's just like speakers though. My ears can only hear so many sounds anymore, so I don't need, you know, the $2,000 speakers for my stereo. It depends what your palate can taste, what your palate likes, and what you enjoy with it. For me, more wine is for more after the fact than during the meal anymore. I drink water, Pellegrino.

That's coming full circle, Chef, because this, you know, this episode really was about cooking in a small kitchen and how you can just make, make anything you want, and you just need the motivation and a little bit of equipment, and there are no limitations, are there? Nope.

So David, do you think you'll be cooking a little bit more sauté style now?

Ah, absolutely. It was so simple to do and just knowing what the right things to put in. But then again, I'm real big on flavors like you were mentioning along the way. If you like to add a little bit of this because of the flavor or a little bit of that. But yeah, I'm going to play with this, but thank you very much. Thank you. It's been a great thrill for me, Chef, to do this with you, and I thank you very, very much. Susan, as always, it's a pleasure to interact with you.

It was a pleasure, David.

Good job. Thanks for bearing with us through, you know, we're learning as we go kind of a thing. It's been a while since I've been in the kitchen in front of the camera. Thank you, David, for making me come back out in front of the camera. As a chef again. You were the one that really motivated me to do this by saying, "Hey, I thought you were a chef.

What are you doing with all the social media stuff?" Well, I think there will be a lot of folks that are going to be very happy that Chef is back in the kitchen and cooking.

Yeah, and I'm so happy to be partnered with Susan. You know, you're teaching me so much every time we talk about kitchens and about things to do with the kitchen. And as a chef, I never thought about them as much.

So thank you so much. Likewise, I'm inspired by, you know, everything you're— I'm watching every single thing you're doing and learning your secrets. Thanks for sharing your secrets.

My pleasure. And you know, we're looking for guests for this show. So if anybody wants to venture some time with us in their kitchen and doing this with me, let us know, let Susan or I know. We're always happy to bring someone new in and talk about food with them.

Lots to talk about, lots to talk about.

Absolutely, and as we go we'll be bringing some kitchen people in too, I think, right Susan?

Oh, absolutely, yes, we have a list and they will provide insight in terms of functioning in the kitchen that, you know, Chef will have opinions on and that's what this is about too, people doing things their own way, yet being open to kind of changing it up a little bit, and that's all good.

Yeah, like I saw some comments in the stream, you know, when I mentioned I didn't like white pepper. People love white pepper, you hate white pepper, you know, food evokes those kind of things, but it's whatever you like. Now people ask me what— it doesn't matter what I like to eat, what do you like to eat? Because that's what it's all about, it's what you like to to eat. If you remember that, you're going to have fun in the kitchen. Nothing is set in stone. You don't have to eat it because I said it. If you like it, if you try it, try it. If you don't like it, move on to what you like.

Make a change.

Yeah. That's how I come up with dishes. People say— somebody came up to me and says, "Will you throw some tomatoes in my Marsala?" I went, "That's nuts." Then I tasted it and I went, "Hey, that's good. Let me put some spinach in to balance it though." You learn from people every day and you don't have to invent the wheel every day. There's a lot of good dishes out there, but make them your own. Make them the way you want them to taste and how you like them. You'll be amazed at the results when you start doing that and having fun in the kitchen. That's all I got today. David, any last words you'd like to leave us with?

No, but a big thank you, and it's been a real pleasure, Chef and Susan. Thank you.

Susan, thanks again, and anything you'd like to leave our viewers with?

Yeah, it was a great show. I have a list of a million other things that we could have talked about. I think we're at no loss for content and comments, and, you know, people just love their kitchens, and we can all learn. We're all learning at the at the same time. So that's fun. I like that.

If there's something you'd like to make, let me know. And if you want to be a guest on the show and there's something specific you'd like to make and I can make it, we'll work on that.

Alright?

So that sounds good, and I'm going to sign off, and I'm really hungry here, and I see my wife coming in, so we may be having an early dinner tonight. So have a great time, else.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.