Name: Lemon Pie
Ingredients: 2 egg yolks; 1 cup water; 1 heaping tablespoon corn starch; sugar (to taste); puff pastry (for the crust)

Why it works: Egg and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 122,807 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Lemon Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

In a small pot, combine egg yolks, water, and corn starch.
Place the pot in a larger pot of boiling water and cook until thickened.
Prepare a puff pastry crust and line a pie plate with it.
Bake the crust in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) until lightly browned.
Pour the thickened mixture into the baked crust.
Beat the egg whites until stiff, then mix in sugar to taste.
Spread the meringue over the pie filling.

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.

Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together122,807 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Corn + sugartop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together7,168 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Egg + corntop 26% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,484 recipes

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