Pecan pie is one of my favorite things, and so, when it came time to assign dishes for this years Christmukkah dinner, that’s what I decided to make. Needless to say, I could not just follow a recipe – I had to try a few new twists! The first thing that came to mind was to soak the pecans in rum before baking, from which I hoped to get a richer flavor (and more of it, as the rum would then also be pecan-infused).
The second addition I made was impromptu – while mixing up the filling, I decided that what it needed was citrus. So, I convinced my dad to eat an orange so that I could use the zest.

What I did was this:
9-inch unbaked pie shell (frozen is OK)
3 eggs (you can use egg beaters)
1 cup light brown sugar, firmly packed
1/2 cup dark corn syrup
1/4 teaspoon salt
Dark rum (I used Meyers)
1/4 cup butter, melted
1 cup shelled pecans (halves are fine)
½ teaspoon fresh orange zest
1/2 cup heavy cream
1 tablespoon sugar
About a day before baking, I put the pecans in a ceramic dish, poured rum over then (covering about 2/3), and covered the dish with a lid. It got stirred every few hours when people were awake and thought about it.
Then, I started baking as follows.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

– Beat eggs in a medium-size bowl until they are light-colored and fluffy, and good peaks form. (Use an electric mixer. If you do it with the standard egg-beater, you will have a sore arm by the time you are finished.)
– Add the brown sugar, corn syrup, salt, zest, and three tablespoons of the pecan-infused rum and stir by hand with a spoon until the sugar is dissolved and the ingredients are thoroughly mixed.
– Stir in the butter and pecans (drain them before adding, but keep the rum!). Pour into the pie shell and bake for 40 minutes or until a knife inserted in the filling comes out clean. Let cool. Serve with whipped cream, to which you have added the remaining infused rum and the tablespoon of sugar.

I think the results of this pie were mixed. It tasted good, but I think there’s some refinement left to do on the recipe. First of all, I think it would have been good to have more orange zest – maybe a whole teaspoonful.
Then, the pecans. There should be more of them, and some should not be marinated – maybe 1 cup rum-infused and a half-cup plain, to add some crunch. Alternatively, it might work to marinate them more in advance, and then pre-roast them so they are dry and crunchy, but still have the rum flavor. Reserving some (wet) rum-infused pecans and adding them to the top of the pie (halfway through baking, so they don’t sink) would be really good – they would caramelize a bit and make a nice top-coat thing.
And that’s what I did on Christmukkah.