Pecan pie.

As I am British, I came late to pecan pie and I do think that it is a shame that we do not make it more often over here in the United Kingdom as it is very simple to do and tastes fantastic to eat. But for some reason it has never caught on, I do not know why for when I have made it in a restaurant it has gone down a storm.

As for the old excuse that you cannot get hold of pecan nuts that is no longer true as they are readily available now. The good thing about it is that it is relatively easy to do but taste grate and is excellent winner or summer.

You will need the following.
185 or 6oz of short crust pastry.
90g or 3oz of butter.
250 ml or 8floz of light corn syrup or golden syrup if you cannot get hold of the corn syrup.
A good pinch of salt, as long as you are using unsalted butter then you will not need this.
200g or 7oz of sugar.
4 eggs.
250g or 8oz of pecan nut halves.
And some good vanilla essence and some good bourbon.

Now you will get out of this a 23cm or 9 inch dish about six or seven portions. Or just four in my house.

Take yore pastry, roll it out on a lightly floured board, and line your dish with your pastry. It is not necessary to blind back this but I normally do so that you get a good dry base to the pastry and you do not want uncooked pastry ruining the dish.

So once you have lined your dish and got it ready then you need to make the fill.

First, melt the butter in a saucepan. Do this slowly over a low heat if you can. Then add the syrup, corn syrup is not that easy to find in the United Kingdom so use good old golden syrup. I have been assured that it makes no difference but I am sure that some one will disagree.

Once this is all a little lose then add the sugar and the salt if you need it. Work this over the gentle heat until it is fairly lose and free moving. Then take it of the heat and just keep stirring for a bit. Then quickly crack the four eggs in to a bowl and whisk them up for a little. Then add to the butter syrup and sugar mix a dash of vanilla and a good shot of bourbon.

Mix this in and then add the eggs. Work the eggs and the rest of the ingredients together and finally add the pecan nuts. What you should have is a light brown looking rick sweet custard that is ready to be pored in to the pastry case that you did earlier.

Once you have pored the mix in to the case just take a little time to make sure that all the nuts are facing upwards. This does not help it taste any better but it just looks better when you take it out of the oven.

Then bake the pie in a preheated oven of about 140C and 330F or gas mark 4 or 5. Then bake for about thirty to forty minuets altogether. You will see when it is ready the egg will have cooked out and the fill will be golden drown on the top.

Now you can have this warm or cold. My favoured way to eat it is fresh baked and just cooling down with a nice scoop of vanilla ice cream. If you do not have or do not like the sound of bourbon in the pie them miss it out you do not have to have it in the mix but I think it gives it a little some thing more than a average mix with out it .
And so there it is my recipe for pecan pie I hope that it is not one that offends too many true devotes of the dish.