How do New Zealanders celebrate thanksgiving?

Erm, we don’t.

It’s a question I have been asked plenty over the last week. As well as “do you eat turkey on thanksgiving or, I imagine, lamb”? First – yes we have more sheep than people in NZ, but we don’t eat lamb for every celebratory meal! And well, you see, we just don’t do thanksgiving. I know, it’s a pity. But you see, October is not the end of the harvest season for us. And we’re not part of North America.

It is a wonderful celebration, and I regret that New Zealand misses out on this national day of thankfulness, feasting, pumpkin, and family. Over this holiday we had all but the latter. Without family here, we gathered together some friends to help compensate for a little homesickness and family-missing over the holiday time.

With no expection or experience, a small group of New Zealanders threw a make shift, yet wonderful celebration. We subbed the turkey for caribou – something we had on hand, straight from the mountains, and much more Canadian to us than turkey. There was no sweet potato casserole (with brown sugar and marshmallows!) but we did have pecan pie. I’m not that accustomed to pumpkin in sweet stuff yet – give me roast pumpkin as part of the main course over sweet pumpkin pie for dessert, but we were all fans of the pecan pie. The Canadian couple who joined us did have to sacrifice a few traditional aspects (the first thanksgiving without turkey!) but I don’t think we let them down.

I’m all about ‘healthifying’ recipes, sure. But this is treat food, not designed to sustain you through work, to help meet your daily requirement of protein or such. It’s a holiday. And so we eat holiday food. In saying that, I could not bring myself to use corn syrup. Almost every recipe you google for Pecan Pie will contain corn syrup. In searching for some alternative ideas, I found this great blog, 100 Days of Real Food, where Canadian maple syrup is used in their Pecan Pie. In combination with molasses and some dark brown sugar this pie has depth! Throw in some dark chocolate, a shot of rum, whiskey or bourbon, a hearty wholemeal biscuit base, and you’ll find yourself with the best pecan pie yet.

Chocolate Pecan Pie
Adapted from 101 Days of Real Food

For the crust I used a basic biscuit recipe (Edmonds Sante biscuit in fact, just without the chocolate chips). You can use any plain biscuit recipe, pressed into a pie dish and par-baked before adding the filling. But here is the crust on the original recipe which sounds fairly straight forward, and doesn’t actually need par-baking if you are pressed for time. Of course you could make pastry instead. This was my original plan, but when I found myself facing a crumbling ball of over-worked pastry which was destined only for the trash, I decided on plan B, and did not regret it. The almond meal is not necessary but I found it gave the filling a ‘frangipane’ taste and texture, a lot thicker than the caramel-ish texture from other recipes. It’s fine either way, so use whatever you have on hand. Of course pecan meal would be even better!

For the crust:
1 ½ cups whole wheat flour
½ teaspoon salt
½ cup melted butter, preferably unsalted
2 tablespoons milk

For the filling:
3 eggs
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup 100% pure maple syrup
1 Tbsp molasses
1 tablespoon melted butter
2 teaspoons whiskey (rum or bourbon would probably suit better but again, whatever you have on hand)
¼ teaspoon salt
1/2 cup almond meal
1 1/2 cups pecans, chopped (keep some whole to decorate)
¾ cup dark chocolate, cut roughly

1. Preheat oven to 375˚F.
2. In a bowl, mix together crust ingredients. Squeeze the dough into a ball to make sure there is enough moisture. Add another splash of milk if it crumbles into pieces too easily then. Press into pie dish, thinning it out with your hands until the pie dish is evenly covered. Bake for about 10 minutes until starting to brown.
3. In the bowl of a mixer, beat the eggs, sugar, syrup, butter, whiskey, and salt. Fold in the almond meal, chopped pecans and chocolate.
4. Pour the filling into the par-baked crust. Arrange whole pecans on top. Bake until pie is set, about 20 – 25 minutes. You may have to cover the top to prevent the crust from getting too dark – keep an eye on it.
5. Let cool for 5 or 10 minutes before serving. We love it with a dollop of tangy natural yogurt to offset the sweetness.