Throwdown! Chicken Marsala

Exciting news, blog fans.  This week marks the first installment of the much-anticipated yet little-actually-done-to-get-there Throwdown series right here on Zinkthink.  For those of you who don't recall this latest attempt to blatantly rip off genuine entertainment outlets, here's the concept.  Throwdown is a show on Food Network, where Bobby Flay, world-renowned chef and grillmeister, finds the best in the world (something)-maker, trains up on how to make the (something) and then challenges them in a surprise cook-off.  It can be some fun television, though honestly I haven't watched in a long time.

Now, there are a few small differences between Bobby Flay and me.  For example, I do not own a megalithic empire of successful restaurants.  Also, and perhaps more pertinently, I do not have the time, resources or skill to cook up different versions of the dish in the test kitchen before the challenge.  And for that matter I don't have someone to challenge.  In the end, my Throwdown ends up looking not at all like the TV show and basically consists of me researching a certain dish, comparing and/or combining multiple recipes to find the one that sounds the best, then making it.  The more I write this, the less it sounds like the show, but I've started off calling this segment Throwdown, and I'm going to stick to it!

There was much hemming and hawing about which dish to begin with.  The original plan called for doing some "classic" dishes, then I decided I wanted to do fish tacos, then things just kind of fizzled out.  But we had an opening for chicken in this week's meal plan, we've had moderate success with Chicken Marsala, and it is a pretty classic Italian dish.  And it's really tasty.  So, I have between now and Saturday evening to come up with how I want to make my Chicken Marsala, and the contest begins: Greg's food versus deciding it's so bad we need to go out for dinner.  Kidding.  Sort of.

I'm now in the midst of the research phase, but here's what I know so far.  Chicken Marsala is a pretty simple meal, consisting of a few steps.  1) Saute chicken in a pan.  2) Cook accompanying vegetables.  3) Create sauce.  4) Combine all previous steps and serve, usually over pasta.  But there are still so many variables!  Flour-coat the chicken or not?  (The recipes split here, but I've gotta say yes).  What vegetables to use?  Mushrooms are classic, but you can apparently add others for more veg content.  And perhaps most importantly, how to make the sauce?  If it falls flat, the whole dish is a disappointment.  I have a preference for a thicker sauce, but even still there are many ways to get there.  So there's lots of exciting research and planning still to come.

As of now, I have consulted the following sources: Better Homes and Gardens cookbook, America's Test Kitchen, Fine Cooking website, Epicurious.com, and Food Network's site.  I'll try to come up with some other ones too, in case I need them.  I'm leery of the sheer volume on the community sites like Allrecipes and Recipezaar, but I might give them a look if I have time.  And any reader suggestions are totally welcome.

Oh, and one last note.  If I can finagle Stacia into playing photographer, I might try to make the result blog post kind of a photo essay, with some pictures of the process as well as the final dish.  Keep in mind our camera is not spectacular, especially when it comes to food, but we'll see about giving it a try this time.

All kidding aside, this is a really cool and exciting challenge for me.  I like to cook, but most of the time I feel like I don't have enough depth of knowledge or experience to make things up on my own.  By doing the real research it takes to figure out what the common ingredients or steps are in successful versions of the dish, I feel like the final compared/combined recipe will more or less be mine, which makes it more or less the first real dish I've created.  It'll be so exciting to say, "let's have Chicken Marsala tonight.  Here's my recipe."  We'll see if we get to that point with the first try, but it's the goal.  Saturday night we should know for sure.  Right now, though, I've got more research to do.