Chicken meatball and mushroom marsala

So, boyfriend still being in town, I actually *gasp* made separate dinners two nights in a row, and didn't just eat leftovers/morning star patty quesadillas. My original plan here was to make mushroom marsala (well, mushrooms with wine, marsala wine is expensive people). But, boyfriend had over a friend who apparently is having to suffer through vegetarian roommates, and he asked for meat. All I had on hand was ground chicken, so I made meatballs.

To make the meatballs, just mix together 1 lb chicken, 1 cup Italian style breadcrumbs, 1 egg, and 1 tsp minced garlic an 1 tsp salt. That one I have memorized, as I make these ALL the time. You can fudge a little with all the ingredients, and I add other dry spices if I have any lying around, just reduce your breadcrumbs a little so you keep the dry/wet ratio in check.

I browned those off while I cooked down some chopped onion, more minced garlic, and sliced mushrooms. Follow Julia Child's advice here people. Give the mushrooms room to breath if you want any browning, otherwise they boil in each other's liquid. If you are about to coat them in wine, and don't care if they caramelize at all, feel free to ignore this, but if you have time, its worth it to let them brown separately in batches to they get golden.

I then added the meatballs into the mix, along with 1 cup red wine and 1 can beef broth. That was too much liquid, I would cut it in half next time. I let that all simmer, covered (hooray inverted pans) for about 45 minutes. (raw chicken is not your friend people). Then I added some pasta I had been boiling, let the whole shebang mix together, added some heavy cream, and sprinkled cheese on top. It was SOOO GOOD. Although a little liquidy, the flavor was great. Plus, the servings were huge, and we had leftovers. I would say I got a solid 9 servings out of this, and it was maybe 14 dollars all told.

The main thing I would change here, other than the liquid, would be the amount of time I involved the mushrooms. As much as I like fully smoked-out, brothy, integrated mushrooms, I think they would have held up better, being white button mushrooms, if I had tossed them in post-browning with the pasta.