Monday, January 11, 2010

The Candied Pecan Experiment

You may recall that, long ago, I made this salad involving beets. Said salad called for candied pecans, but I was lazy and I did not candy them, I just threw them in plain. Then, over Christmas, Simon P. sent me a whole bag of candied/spiced nuts, and my love affair with candied nuts in salads reasserted itself, and I decided to candy my remaining pecans.

Turns out it is a fairly disgusting process. First of all, the combination of raw egg white and sugar doesn't feel nice on your fingers. And it doesn't look nice on the pecans. You can't tell here, but you could use the phrase "slippery globs" to describe the contents of this tray.


Then, when you take them out to stir for the first time, it looks like you're cooking candied beetles. A delicious appetizer for Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, maybe, but no substitute in a salad.


After an hour of baking, they looked much better, and tasted delicious, but it was at this point that I looked at the huge amount of sugar on them and realized that what I had really wanted was glazed pecans.


Ah, well. Good thing I only eat them about five at a time.

2 comments:

Ivan said...

you won't eat mushrooms but you'll handle slippery gobs of pecans. after that description I would not be inclined to put them on my salad.

Katie said...

Thoughts:
1) Um...Why did you use your fingers? That is gross. I used a whisk, then a spoon, then a spatula. My fingers never touched the things til they were dry.

2) Ew! Candied beetles! And you think mushrooms and bacon are gross? Weirdo :p

3) AN HOUR OF BAKING? Were you trying to kill them into submission? Were they not burnt? (See note 4)

4) I think that you should have had more pecans for the amount of sugar that you used. I don't think you really wanted glazed pecans...I think you really wanted MORE pecans. As in about 3 times as many. Then you would be much happier, and they wouldn't be as sugary or weird.

5) Still, thanks for trying. Your culinary adventures never cease to amuse me. I made chicken korma, dal, and rice pudding last night. The rice pudding is questionable...