Marla Koss brings us this delicious twist on a holiday favorite. The recipe has a great depth of flavor from the fruit and is a great way to use up a ripe persimmon or two.
Yields enough filling for a single-crust 10-inch pie or a 9-inch pie + 2 oven-safe custard ramekins. Use your own favorite pie crust recipe (or simply bake as a custard without crust). You may want to pre-bake the pie shell for 30 minutes at 375° to avoid the dreaded soggy bottom; be sure to prick the unbaked pie shell with a fork to keep it from puffing, and fill pie shell with pie weights or dried beans held by parchment paper. Once out of the oven, let it cool just enough that it’s still warm when you add the filling. You may want to place aluminum foil strips over the crust to keep it from browning too much while the pie is baking.
Two cups pureed, cooked sugar pie pumpkin may be subbed for the canned pumpkin. For the persimmon pulp, you may use one large ripe Hachiya or two large, ripe Fuyu persimmons that you have washed, removed the calyx and any seeds from, and pureed in a blender, skin and all.
Filling Ingredients:
- 15-ounce can pumpkin
- 1 cup persimmon pulp
- 3 eggs
- ¾ cup sugar
- 12-ounce can evaporated milk
- 2 tablespoons flour
- 2 teaspoons cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon allspice or cloves
- 1 teaspoon nutmeg, or to taste
- ¼ teaspoon salt
With the oven at 350°, whisk together pumpkin, persimmon pulp and spices in a large saucepan over low heat and cook for about 5 minutes to allow for more complex flavor to develop. Off the heat, whisk in sugar and salt, and let the mixture cool to lukewarm. Add eggs one at a time, beating each in thoroughly. Sprinkle the flour over this and whisk it in well. Mix in the evaporated milk and pour the filling into pie shell. Any extra filling can be poured into a custard ramekin or two and baked alongside the pie.
Bake until the pie is only slightly jiggly in the middle and the rest of the pie looks solid. Over-baking will cause the filling to crack. Cool the pie to room temperature before serving, or refrigerate if it is made well in advance.
