Why it works: Egg and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 44,316 recipes. Both carry (e,e)-2,4-decadienal, which smells fatty, deep fried. The science ↓
Lemon Custard
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Separate the egg whites from the yolks.
In a bowl, mix the yolks with the lemon juice and grated rind.
Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.
Make the custard
Combine the yolk mixture with the beaten egg whites.
Cook over a double boiler, stirring constantly until thickened like custard.
Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
Explore the science
The flavor team
The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.
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Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together44,316 recipes
Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).
Egg and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 44,316 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Eggs
- Yolks thicken the custard as they cook, while whipped whites add lightness and volume.
- Lemon juice
- Provides acidity and bright tart flavor that balances the richness of the yolks.
- Lemon rind
- Adds aromatic lemon oils, giving a stronger citrus aroma than juice alone.
The step that matters
Cook over a double boiler, stirring constantly. Egg yolks thicken gently at moderate heat. If the heat is too high or stirring stops, the yolks can scramble and curdle, so the custard must be stirred steadily until it coats a spoon.
“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.
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