Mudica Steak

With Felicia Mohan

The Mudica breadcrumbs are used in many traditional dishes but one dish that many people recall more so than others are Mudica Steaks. The thin steaks are coated in seasoned flour, an egg wash, covered in Mudica breadcrumbs and then deep-fried. Extra steaks are used to make Mudica Steak sandwiches the next day. Felicia, who was named after her grandmother, assures that her Grandma Felicia’s Mudica Conzata (breadcrumbs) and her other culinary traditions will be around for many more years to come.

Ingredients

1 top of the round roast sliced into ¼ in slices
2 cups of flour (seasoned with salt & pepper)
4 eggs
1 cup of milk
1 pound Mudica Italian seasoned breadcrumbs

Instructions

1. Rinse and dry steak cutlets.
2. Season flour with salt and pepper.
3. Dredge steak in seasoned flour on both sides. Shake off excess flour.
4. Mix eggs and milk, then dip steak cutlet into egg/milk bath and then into Mudica breadcrumbs.
5. Fry in La Spagnola Oil (Note: La Spagnola Oil is a Vegetable & Olive oil blend; “Excellent” for frying)
6. Remove from frying pan when browned on both sides and drain excess oil.

Recipe courtesy of Felicia Mohan, Gloucester, MA, 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