Walking through a local grocery a couple of days ago I had ‘an apostrophe’.
My apostrophe / epiphany was quite simple. I was to take that very nice looking two pound bag of whole pecan pieces screaming at me from the shelf and construct a genuine, make-your-Southern-Grandmother-proud pecan pie.
My apostrophe might have been seeded from the suggestion that chef friend Libby made a few weeks ago to try this very pecan pie recipe – Libby’s Brown Butter Pecan Pie.
A pecan pie made so seductively enticing by the taste of brown butter, she said, it would make me forget every other pecan pie I’ve ever tasted. A pecan pie recipe that was so utterly simple and yet not overly cloying as so many pecan pies seem to be.
The process was made even simpler after convincing SWMBO to whip together one of her impossibly light and flaky scratch pie crusts (the only way to fly by the way).
And Libby (as usual, dammit) was right.
This blasted pie for all intents and purposes is perfect – packed with pecans, in no way cloying with a definite tone from the browned butter (which is awesome – screw whoever said you should never use the word awesome in polite society today – by the way) and just a hint of lemon.
Better get to the store and have your own apostrophe this weekend.
1/2 cup butter
1 cup sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
1 and 1/2 tsp. vanilla
1 cup dark corn syrup
3 eggs, beaten
1 tbsp. fresh lemon juice
1 and 1/2 cups pecans (halves better than pieces)1 unbaked 9 inch pie crust
Preheat the oven to 425.
Brown that butter. In a medium saucepan over medium heat, melt and brown the butter. Watch carefully; when it starts to change color things happen more quickly. Cool slightly.
Keep mixing. Now add the sugar, salt, vanilla and dark corn syrup; stir to combine. Add the beaten eggs and mix well. Finally, add the lemon juice and pecans; stir to coat the pecans well.
Make and bake a pie. Pour the mixture into the unbaked pie shell and bake at 425 for ten minutes, then reduce heat to 325 and bake for an additional 55-65 minutes until the center is set.
Wait forever for it to cool.
Enjoy.
