So, pecan pie...
INGREDIENTS
120g plain flour
60g cold butter, diced
1 tbsp maple syrup
2 tbsp ice-cold water
2 eggs, beaten
50g butter, melted
100g soft dark brown sugar
4 tbsp golden syrup
2 tbsp maple syrup
175g pecan halves
METHOD
1) Pulse the flour and butter in a food processor until they resemble breadcrumbs. Add the syrup (just to sweeten the pastry) and add the water one tablespoon at a time until it binds together. Cover the ball of pastry in clingfilm and pop in the freezer for one hour.
2) Preheat the oven to 200 degrees.
3) This is going to sound odd, but coarsely grate the frozen pastry and then press it out into a 9in/23cm pie tin with your fingers. I came across this pastry method in the wonderful Waitrose magazine and it really is worth trying – it’s much lighter and more delicate than other pastries. The uneven, ‘frilly’ edges also give your pie a certain rustic charm.
4) For wetter pies/tarts like this, I’ve found it’s best to blind-bake the base for about 10 minutes until the base is just cooked through, so do that while you make the filling. No need for baking balls or any of that as it won’t puff up. But word to the wise, here – don’t use a pie tin with perforated holes at the base as it will leak!
5) Melt the butter for the filling over a gentle heat until it just turns a light golden brown (not burnt!). The technical term for this is beurre noisette and it gives the pie a nice toffee-nutty taste, if that makes sense. Set aside.
6) Mix the sugar and two syrups into the beaten egg. Loads of pecan pie recipes call for three eggs, but I find that’s one too many and leaves you with too much of an eggy taste, hence I omit one. And I like using a bit of maple syrup as it’s the perfect partner to pecans, IMHO. Stir in the butter.
7) Arrange the pecans in the pastry case, pour the liquid on top and transfer to the oven. Bake for 10 to 15 minutes before turning down to 180 degrees for a further 15 to 20 minutes. Turn out the tin when slightly cooled and serve warm or cold (when it’ll be even stickier!) with ice cream, cream or crème fraiche.
Ahh... One of the best things about writing this blog is that I get to whip up treats like this pie for no particular reason and then pig out. There’s a slice of the States on a plate, y’all! Now, I wonder how difficult it is to create an authentic Dunkin’ Donuts experience in my own kitchen? Or get a pretzel inside an M&M..? Both delicacies I didn’t eat while in New York. I did, however, enjoy my very first Subway and a dinner consisting entirely of crisps, thanks to my brother’s gastronomic discerning.
But before you go thinking we had an entirely terrible time, we did manage to pack in plenty of fun stuff around the, er, hiccups... Up the Empire State Building. Circle Line boat tour to see Lady Liberty. Central Park, even though we got lost for a further hour after I said I had to go home and thought my feet were going to fall off. Having a wee at the United Nations knowing I was on international soil. Oh, and ogling all the True Blood season three billboards. So all good, cultural stuff.
I guess we got off to a bad start, is all... On our first night at the hotel, I woke up around 3.00am after having a bellyful of Diazepam, beer and no sleep for some 24 hours in an effort to beat jet-lag to find our bathroom completely flooded. There was a good inch of water on the floor, which was seeping out onto the bedroom carpet – all a bit Fear and Loathing. No sooner had I sleepily tossed a towel down – about as much use as bailing out a sinking ship with a teaspoon – than hotel staff were banging on our door. Water was dripping down into the room below, so they promptly moved us.
All of which I apparently found hilarious at the time, judging by the photos I took to document the whole sorry affair. ‘Their leak, their problem’, I figured. The next morning, not so much... The hotel manager rejected our leak theory in favour of a tap left running. My brother had no recollection of the night’s proceedings. But, to me, a leak seemed the only logical explanation. So we tried to carry on our holiday regardless. Which isn’t easy when your brother’s secretly worrying he had the bright idea of running a midnight bath in a highly litigious society. And so, at the end of a hideous day spent trailing solemnly around the Financial District contemplating the atrocities of 9/11 in between my throwing up with heatstroke, I realised that my life movie more closely resembled The Hangover.
A review of the evidence – photo times, a pair of wet socks and the fact that we are a couple of British binge-drinking buffoons – revealed that we were guilty as charged, m’lord. The likelihood being that one of us (ie, my brother) left the tap running for some three hours til it overwhelmed the overflow before he finally turned it off without doing a thing about the water, all while I was sound asleep. I think his soggy socks would be enough to convict him in a court of law.
So I phoned the manager and fessed up. And cried. Because I’m good at that. And after leaving us to stew for a few days that lovely, lovely Ace Hotel let us off the hook without charging us a penny! Which was the best un-30th-birthday present I could have wished for!
Plus has also stopped me filing for divorce from my drunk and disorderly brother. The end.
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