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Dessert

Silver Pie

A sweet potato pie topped with meringue, flavored with lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,230 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Silver Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the filling

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Combine the grated potato, lemon juice, lemon rind, beaten egg white, sugar, and water in a bowl, and mix the combined ingredients well.

  3. Pour the mixture into a pie dish lined with the crust.

Bake and top with meringue

  1. Bake until set.

  2. Beat the egg whites with the fine sugar until stiff peaks form.

  3. Spread the meringue over the baked pie and return to the oven until golden brown.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

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.

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.

  1. Potato + lemontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,230 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  2. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  4. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Potato + eggtop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,978 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

Lemon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Potato
Grated potato thickens the filling and gives it a custard-like body once baked.
Egg white
Beaten egg white helps bind the filling so it sets firmly in the oven.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they form the airy meringue that browns on top.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps the meringue stay glossy and stable.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sweet filling and balances its flavour.

The step that matters

Beat the egg whites to stiff peaks. Egg whites under-whipped or greasy will not hold their structure, so the meringue may weep or collapse. Whites must be free of yolk and fat to whip fully and hold air.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lemon, egg, sugar):

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Arrowrootfits better
  3. Sweet potatofits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, egg, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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