Easy fool proof marsala sauce recipe?

Cafe Society
1

Anybody got one? We have it every year at our Christmas party with chicken. I tried it tonight using this recipe that a friend from work looked up for me off the internet so I could get the ingredients on my way home.

1/4 cup finely chopped shallots
1 oz. Butter
1/2 tsp. cracked pepper
1 bay leaf
1 sprig fresh thyme
3/4 cup Marsala wine
1/4/ cup red wine
1 cup demi glace
1/4 cup heavy cream

melt butter in a sauce pan and saute shallots thyme bay leaf and peppercorns
add both wines and reduce to half
add demi glace add heavy cream

There wasn’t much else to it so I just winged how long to cook everything. Also…having no idea what demi glace was and not seeing anything like it at the store, I made a chicken gravy and used that instead because I read that some chefs use a stock gravy as a quick substitute. Anyway…it didn’t taste horrible but the flavor was really bland. Couldn’t taste any of the ingredients really except the wine, and god did it stink like wine no matter how long I cooked it and it never really thickened properly. The stuff we have at the Christmas party is smooth and silky and rich and doesn’t smell like wine at all.

I am not a great cook and have never cooked with wine before ever so don’t be too harsh on my culinary ignorance but here are some things that may have made a difference:

Ground pepper instead of cracked pepper, although i do not know what the difference is and don’t feel like looking it up right now.

dried thyme and bay leaf instead of fresh

gravy instead of demi glace

Um…cheap wine maybe? but the only marsala wine I found.

Anyway…was the recipe bad? I figured the changes I made would make it still pretty good but maybe not as good as it could be but it was such a complete difference from what i’ve tasted that it wasn’t even comparable. Was it just cooking failure on my part? Does anyone have a recipe that is sure to please with minimal effort because I don’t have a lot of time but I can’t stand waiting a whole year to get my marsala fix and I’ve never seen it on a restaurant menu where I live. PLEEEEASE!

2

My wife uses Tyler Florence’s Chicken Marsala recipe. It is très delish.

3

I imagine the flavor loss is in the demi glace/chicken gravy substitution. Demi glace is a highly concentrated veal stock/sauce and a little will go a long way. Any chicken gravy is going to appear mild in comparison. You could try mixing in a bit of marmite or beef Better than bullion to up the salty/meaty flavors.

4

Yeah, big difference between gravy and demi-glace. Also, did you correct for salt? I don’t see any salt in your recipe, and if you didn’t adjust seasonings for salt, that would make a big difference in the final taste. The other sustitutions aren’t that big a deal. Cracked pepper tastes fresher and fruitier than cracked. Bay leaf is usually dried and when a recipe calls for it, it’s assumed to be a dry leaf, not a fresh one (at least in my experience). Fresh vs dried thyme there is a taste difference, but thyme stands up better to drying than a lot of other herbs.