Chicken marsala is one of those Italian American dishes that seems to be a standard in many a home cook’s repertoire. It consists of flour-coated thin chicken breast cutlets, cooked with a Marsala wine reduction and usually mushrooms as well. This recipe for chicken marsala is one of my father’s favorites. It doesn’t use mushrooms, though you could certainly include them, and gets much of its flavor from pancetta, an Italian version of bacon, that is salt-cured not smoked. It takes all of maybe 30 minutes to prepare, so it’s perfect for a midweek dinner. Dad sometimes substitutes bacon for the pancetta (gasp!); according to him, “one can’t live on pancetta alone.” And he sometimes switches out the Marsala for dry vermouth.

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