Here’s one that’s inspired by a dish I’ve never actually had. I waited tables at a small handful of places when I was in college, and at least two of those places served chicken Marsala. Now, this is going to sound weird, but despite being a vegetarian, I was always really intrigued in the dish. Okay, maybe not the dish itself, but the sauce. It just smelled really good. All of those restaurants I worked at would hook me up with a meal if I worked a long shift, so I’m not sure why it never occurred to me to ask if I could have the sauce over pasta or something. In any event, I never got to know what that delicious smelling sauce packed with shiny little mushroom bits tasted like. It just recently occurred to me that I needed to find out, and to do that I’d need to create my own version. This is really a mish-mosh of eighty or so recipes that I perused in various cookbooks and online, since I’ve never actually had Marsala sauce before. I’m not sure how close I came to the mark, but it was so delicious that I’m going to just go ahead and proclaim success. One thing I did differently from all the recipes I scoped out was to include garlic. Not a single one called for garlic! I distinctly recall the Marsala sauce of my younger years smelling garlicky. Maybe I just remember it that way because I really like garlic, but whatever. I went and included it, because garlic is good in just about anything, except maybe chocolate muffins (I checked). It was good here. Since we’re skipping the chicken part of chicken Marsala, I figured we ought to add a little something for protein, and chickpeas seemed perfect. The Marsala dishes I served years ago usually came with a big scoop of pasta, but I love the combination of savory mushrooms and creamy polenta, so I went with that instead. I’m sure this would be good atop pasta, so feel free to sub pasta for polenta if you’d like, and be sure to let me know how it works out. Like this recipe? If so, be sure to follow me on Facebook, Pinterest or Instagram, or subscribe to my newsletter. And please stop back and leave me a review and rating below if you make it!
