Pumpkin Pecan Pie

Halloween preparation week. Lucas has decided he wants to be a chef for Halloween. A chef. My grandson. A four-year-old chef with a tiny apron and a tiny chef hat and a plastic wooden spoon, which Miguel Jr. ordered online because Miguel Jr. is a problem-solver and also a sentimentalist, and when your son wants to be his tío David for Halloween you order the costume, you do not ask questions.

I made calabaza soup this week to celebrate the pumpkin season. Calabaza is the Puerto Rican pumpkin — a green-skinned, orange-fleshed squash that is sweeter and denser than the American jack-o'-lantern type, and that my family has used in soups and stews and sweets for generations. I roasted a whole calabaza on Tuesday — cut in half, seeds scooped, laid cut-side down on a sheet pan, 400 degrees for an hour — and I scooped out the flesh and pureed it with onion, garlic, chicken broth, a splash of coconut milk, and a pinch of nutmeg, and I finished with a spoonful of sofrito stirred through at the end, because any soup I make gets sofrito somewhere.

The soup came out the color of a Caribbean sunset and it was bright and silky and Eduardo ate two bowls. Mami ate half a bowl and said, "The coconut is too much." I had used a teaspoon of coconut milk. A teaspoon. She tasted it. She is a monster. I love her.

Wednesday Lucas came over with the costume to show me. He paraded through the kitchen in his little chef hat, holding the wooden spoon, saying "I am a chef, Abuela, I am a chef like tío David and like you," and I nearly lost my composure entirely. Eduardo took a photo. I printed it. It is on the refrigerator next to the photo of Mami from Memorial Day. The refrigerator is becoming a shrine.

Thursday at work I taped up a sign in the hospital cafeteria advertising the Halloween special lunch: "chicken tortilla soup in a pumpkin bowl." My menu. I designed this three years ago — a small ladle of soup served in a hollowed-out mini pumpkin — and it sells out every Halloween, and the patients love it, and the staff love it, and it is the kind of operational theater I will miss when I retire.

Friday Sofía came by with a grocery bag. She had gone to a Puerto Rican bodega on Park Street and bought me a pumpkin specifically, a mini calabaza, for nothing — for no reason — because "I thought of you." My daughter the nursing student is forty hours into another hard week and she stopped at a bodega to buy her mother a pumpkin. I made her sit down and eat dinner and I did not let her leave until she had eaten two bowls of the soup from the calabaza I already had roasted. The new calabaza is on the counter. I will cook it next week. Wepa.

Between the roasted calabaza on Tuesday and Sofía’s surprise bodega pumpkin sitting on my counter waiting for next week, I had pumpkin on the brain in the best possible way — and one calabaza always seems to yield just a little more than even two bowls of soup can use. So I took that last scoop of roasted flesh and turned this week’s pumpkin season into something Lucas could help me eat with his little plastic spoon: a pumpkin pecan pie that is silky and spiced and just a little bit dramatic, the way Halloween should be. If Mami complains about the nutmeg, I am ready.

Prep Time: 20 min | Cook Time: 55 min | Total Time: 1 hr 15 min | Servings: 8

Ingredients

1 unbaked 9-inch deep-dish pie shell
1 cup pumpkin puree (or roasted calabaza flesh, pureed smooth)
3/4 cup packed dark brown sugar, divided
3 large eggs, divided
1/2 cup heavy cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon fine salt, divided
1 cup pecan halves
1/2 cup light corn syrup
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled

Instructions

Preheat oven. Heat your oven to 350°F. Place the unbaked pie shell in a 9-inch deep-dish pie plate and crimp the edges. Set aside on a rimmed baking sheet.
Make the pumpkin layer. In a medium bowl, whisk together the pumpkin puree, 1/4 cup of the brown sugar, 1 egg, the heavy cream, vanilla, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and 1/8 teaspoon salt until completely smooth.
Pour and pre-bake. Pour the pumpkin mixture into the prepared pie shell. Bake for 15 minutes, until the pumpkin layer is just beginning to set at the edges but still loose in the center.
Make the pecan layer. While the pumpkin layer pre-bakes, whisk together the remaining 2 eggs, the remaining 1/2 cup brown sugar, the corn syrup, melted butter, and remaining 1/8 teaspoon salt in a bowl until smooth. Fold in the pecan halves.
Top and finish baking. Carefully slide the oven rack out and gently spoon the pecan mixture over the partially set pumpkin layer, spreading the pecans evenly to the edges. Bake for an additional 35 to 40 minutes, until the pecan layer is set and does not jiggle when the pan is gently nudged.
Cool completely. Transfer the pie to a wire rack and cool for at least 2 hours before slicing. The layers will continue to firm as they cool — patience is rewarded here.
Serve. Slice into 8 wedges and serve at room temperature or slightly warm, with whipped cream if you like.

Nutrition (per serving)

Pumpkin Pecan Pie — The Calabaza Season Doesn’t Have to End with Soup