Why it works: Sugar and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Lemon Pie
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the filling
Bake a pie crust and set aside.
In a bowl, mix 2 eggs (reserve the white of 1) and 1 cup sugar until well combined.
Add the grated rind and juice of 1 lemon, and 1 cup boiling water. Stir until it boils.
Mix 1½ tablespoons cornstarch with a little water, then add to the boiling mixture. Boil for a few minutes.
Assemble and brown
Pour the filling into the baked crust.
Beat the reserved egg white to a froth, add a little sugar, and spread it on top of the pie.
Brown the pie in the oven.
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.
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Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together53,532 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together44,316 recipes
Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).
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Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Sugar and lemon 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
- Eggs
- Yolks thicken the filling and the beaten white forms the topping.
- Cornstarch
- Thickens the boiling lemon mixture into a smooth, sliceable filling.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the filling and helps stabilise the beaten egg white topping.
- Lemon
- Provides the acidity and aroma that flavour the filling.
The step that matters
Boil the cornstarch mixture for a few minutes. Cornstarch only thickens fully once it reaches a boil and holds it briefly. Stopping early leaves the filling thin and runny after it cools.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits about as well
- Lemonthe original
- Datesfits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against 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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