With Felicia Mohan
If you grew up in a Sicilian or Italian household or ever went to one at this time of year you may remember these treats. These are an Italian holiday treat that you can make ahead and leave in serving dishes around your house. The way that Felicia (Ciaramitaro) Mohan makes them, based on her Grandmother Felicia’s recipe, are little bites of fried dough slathered in a honey/Kayo syrup mixture and topped with bits of chocolate, toasted nuts and fresh cinnamon.
There is a difference in how the name seems to be spelled in Italy (pignolata) and here in the US (pinulata). The way it is made, however, and the enjoyment that people feel every holiday season is very similar. In Italy, it seems that they were originally made for Martedi Grasso (Fat Tuesday), to splurge before Lent, but have now become a Christmas treat as well. Some say that they are named after what they resemble, large pine nuts.
Ingredients
Dough Ingredients:
1 dozen large eggs
4 to 5 cups duram wheat flour
La Spinola oil (vegetable oil with 1% olive oil)
Coating Ingredients:
1 16 ounce jar white Karo
1 16 ounce Jar of honey
2 large bars Hershey chocolate with almonds, choped into chunks
1 small package of whole almonds, blanched in water and peeled and toasted in oven
1 small package of walnuts, toasted in oven
Fresh cinnamon sticks, finely ground to taste
Instructions
Dough Instructions:
Leave eggs on counter overnight.
1. Place the flour on a clean work surface and make a well in center of flour. Add eggs one at a time in center of well, picking up flour from edges with a fork, mix with fork until all eggs are incorporated with the flour. Place dough in oiled bowl.
2. Take pieces of the dough and roll into long logs. Cut 3/8" pieces from the log.
3. Spray logs with cooking spray,& scoop up cut pieces w/ pastry scraper, and place on oiled cookie sheet so the pinulata pieces won't stick.
4. Starting with cold oil in tall pan filling oil to half way mark in pan add 1/2 of the pinulata pieces to pan. When pinulata floats to top of oil, continuously stir pieces, cook until they turn light golden brown with a slight pinkish tint. Remove from pan with slotted large spoon.
5. Place in doubled paper brown grocery bag to absorb oil. Repeat process till all pieces are cooked. Set bags aside. Coating Instructions:
1. Mix above ingredients together in a bowl. In another large bowl place all the pinulata pieces and coat with above mixture.
2. Place fixed pinulata in festive bowls, wetting your hands with water to mold into a high rounded pyramid shape. Sprinke w/ jimmies.
Recipe courtesy of Felicia (Ciaramitaro) 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
