Pecan Pie

Thanksgiving Dinner is a holiday day layered with traditions. A ritualistic holiday celebrating family and food. We have foods on our Thankgiving Day menu that simply don't change. I've looked at the themed-dinners in various food magazines, but I'll never cook them. You see, we do a multi-family pot-luck style dinner, with each family contributing to the meal. The inlaws must bring their amazing dressing, and mother brings fresh cranberry relish, and friends bring the soup course and sweet potatoes and other sides and desserts, and I always cook the turkey and the mashed potatoes and gravy and rolls and more desserts. And then we have wine. And we dine. And we groan. And then we eat dessert and groan some more. And then we talk until we can contemplate moving again.

Dessert.

Probably the one area where I do experiment is with the desserts. Last year I introduced this amazing cranberry 'mince meat' style pie. (I've even had someone say it's better than Zingerman's cranberry pie. Now that's a compliment.) This year I slipped in a new pecan pie recipe.

I was pretty nervous about the pecan pie. It's a tradition. A dessert ritual. We must have a pecan pie. And the recipe we've traditionally used is one of Joe's family recipes. Except that this year I couldn't find it. It should be in my "dessert recipe" binder, but I paged through it twice and didn't see it. Rather than admit this embarrassing loss (and I bet I get a copy in email), I turned to this cookbook because I've had such good experiences with it and found a very promising recipe.

So I knew I was quietly committing a heresy, and if it didn't turn out I would be banned from experimenting on pecan pies for Thanksgiving. (Experimenting other times of the year would be okay.) But I really, really want to try this recipe largely because it doesn't use corn syrup.

"How was the pecan pie?" I asked anxiously, over and over again.

It was good. Very good. And it was the first pie to get finished. All the others — we had four total — were barely half-gone when the last piece of the pecan vanished.

Joe still prefers my take on his family's recipe. I guess I'll have to make them both and conduct a side-by-side taste test.

Mark Bittman's Pecan Pie
How to Cook Everything

1 9" pie crust
2 C shelled pecans
5 eggs
1 C white sugar
1/2 C brown sugar
pinch salt
6 Tbs butter, melted
1 Tbs vanilla extract

Prebake crust if necessary.

Heat oven to 450 degrees F. Place pecans on a baking sheet and back, shaking and stirring, for about 5 minutes or until pecans are hot. Don't let them overbrown. Cool pecans, coarsely chop half of them.

Turn oven to 375 degrees F.

Beat eggs well, until they are foamy. Beat in sugars, salt, and butter. Warm this mixture in a medium saucepan over medium-low heat, stirring occasionally, until it is hot to the touch. Do not boil. Stir in vanilla extract and the pecans.

Place pie plate on a baking sheet. Pour mixture into pie plate and bake 30 to 40 minutes, until the mixture shakes like Jell-O but is still quite moist. Cool on a rack and serve warm or at room temperature.

Mark Bittman says to pre-bake the pie crust while warming the pie filling, and then pouring the pie filling into a still hot pie crust.

Kitchen Chick's Notes
Next time I make this, I'm going to switch the sugars and use 1 C brown sugar to 1/2 C white.

I used Billington's Muscovado Sugar. I think it would also be worth trying with dark brown molasses sugar.

Comments

[Ivonne]

That is one beautiful pecan pie!

[ExPat Chef]

I changed up the traditional pumpkin this year with a Vanilla Sweet Potato Pie with Brown Sugar-Pecan Crust. Staying true to my Eat Local year, I leveraged as many ingredients as I could from the farmer's market.

It was amazing, and gone quickly. You can find the recipe here:
http://expatriateskitchen.blogspot.com/2006/11/100-mile-pie-well-almost.html

[Lori Stammer]

Your recipe sounds awesome, I was hunting online and found a neat pecan pie in-a-jar at http://www.greatpecans.com/cooking/pie-in-a-jar.htm, where all you have to do is add eggs! I love to cook, but hate to shell pecans or even buy them in the store already shelled. This is a great alternative.