Chicken Spiedini

With Felicia Mohan

Felicia Mohan grew up in Gloucester, Massachusetts learning how to cook from her mother and aunts. This chicken dish was created by her aunt Catherine as a substitute for the more common beef version of the dish that Sicilian Americans have been making for many years.

One of the main ingredients is the traditional seasoned breadcrumbs made by many Sicilian Americans called Mudica Conzata. The recipe for the breadcrumbs below is from Grandmother Felicia, who passed along most of the traditional recipes in the family. If you do not make these breadcrumbs you can use any type of seasoned breadcrumbs that you wish to.

Ingredients

For the Chicken Spiedini:
8 chicken tenders, pounded flat to about ¼ inch thick
1 cup olive oil (for dipping)
2 cups Mudica Conzata “Italian Seasoned Bread Crumbs”
1 large onion, sliced
2 tablespoons olive oil
¼ pound butter, cut into 1/4 inch cubes
½ pound Fontina Cheese
1 can Italian peeled tomatoes

For the Mudica Conzata “Italian Seasoned Bread Crumbs”:
1 1/2 lb. plain Italian bread crumbs
3 to 4 cloves garlic, chopped fine
1 packet of Good Seasons dressing mix
1 ½ cups of grated cheese (Use either pecorino Romano or parmesan)
½ cup parsley, finely chopped
2 handfuls of Progresso fixed Italian bread crumbs

Instructions

For the Chicken Spiedini:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees
2. Pound chicken tenders between wax paper to flatten into ¼ inch thickness.
3. Dip chicken into olive oil and then dip into Mudica “Italian seasoned breadcrumbs”.
4. Sauté sliced onion until transparent and set aside in a bowl.
5. Chill 1/4 inch cubes of butter in refrigerator and set aside in a bowl.
6. Cut Fontina cheese into ½ inch pieces and set aside in a bowl.
7. Open can of tomatoes and place in a bowl.
8. Take the chicken and lay it onto a cutting board. Place a little onion, a piece of butter, piece of cheese; with fingers break a piece and place in center of chicken. Roll chicken up and place seam side down in baking dish. Continue until you fill dish.
9. Bake at 350 degrees for 20 to 25 minutes until the Mudica is golden and the cheese is melted.

For the Mudica Conzata “Italian Seasoned Bread Crumbs”:
1. Mix all ingredients in large mixing bowl.
2. Store in air-tight container in freezer.

Recipe courtesy of Felicia Mohan, 2010.

From "Food For Thought" Column by Heather Atwood: Felicia Mohan lives in a sparkling new house in Gloucester, and has twin 11-year-olds: Amanda, playing 12-year-old tennis and ranked No. 32 in New England, and B.J., a catcher for AAU Baseball who will play in the Gloucester All-Star 11-year-old team. Felicia looks like a beautiful, modern mother, struggling to get her kids where they need to go while keeping up with life at home, but Felicia is also adamant about preserving her family's Sicilian heritage, particularly the dishes her grandmother, another Felicia, prepared. Felicia Mohan's grandfathers were named Joseph Salvatore Ciaramitaro — both of them, spelled the exact same way. One Joseph fished first from his boat The Benjamin and Josephine, which was sunk by a German U-boat off the coast of Maine, and then he fished from his Benjamin C, named after his father-in-law, Benjamin Cucuru. Later he founded Capt'n Joe's Lobster Co. on the wharf in Gloucester, now run by Felicia's brother, Joey, and cousin Frankie. Felicia's other grandfather owned Pat's Center Grocery, that not only sold groceries but provided all the fishing boats with food for their long trips, delivering the "speza," as the supplies were called, to each boat before it left port.
Grandpa with the wharf was married to Felicia's namesake. Holidays at this Felicia's house began a full week ahead as all the women in the family gathered at her home, which had two full kitchens, to cook together. When school let out at 3, the children went straight to Grandma's house that week because that's where their mothers were cooking. Not only were these women making all the traditional Italian holiday foods, from appetizers such as octopus salad, a standard which the men insisted upon at every holiday, to a wealth of Italian cookies, homemade bread, and New World foods such as pies, but the women were also making ordinary dinners those weeknights for all their husbands and children. Felicia and Joseph have passed away. Now, holiday meals are at young Felicia's, where 35 to 40 people come to celebrate. Felicia, like her grandmother, still sets a formal table with china and linen; her custom-built table seats 25, with two more tables in the great room for overflow, replacing her grandmother's enormous table that started in the kitchen, extended through the dining room, the hallway and ended at the living room. In her large, creamy, new kitchen, Felicia still makes dishes like braciole, spiedini, and olive gonzathe. She makes videos for this newspaper showing how to prepare her grandmother's special bread crumbs, "mudiga," with chicken and steak. This past December, Felicia gathered all the cousins together to make their great-grandmother's Santa Lucia dessert, "cuccia," a vanilla pudding made with wheatberries which the playful great-grandmother had always encouraged the children to eat in a race. Contact Heather at heatheraa@aol.com. Her blog is at gloucestertimes.com/foodforthought