Why it works: Milk and corn are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,955 recipes. Both carry hexanal, which smells green, grassy. The science ↓
Lemon 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
Grate the yellow skin of the lemon, avoiding the bitter white skin, and remove the seeds.
In a saucepan, combine the milk and salt, and place it in a pan of boiling water over heat.
Make the filling
Mix the corn-starch with a little cold milk and stir it into the saucepan; cook until it boils for 2 minutes, then remove from heat.
Beat the egg yolks and sugar together, then stir them into the mixture along with the grated lemon peel.
Beat the egg whites with 2 teaspoons of sugar until stiff, then fold them into the mixture.
Bake
Pour the filling into a buttered deep pie plate lined with puff pastry and bake at 350°F (175°C) until light brown, about 20 minutes.
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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Milk + corntop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,955 recipes
Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).
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Lemon + corntop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,927 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Lemon + milktop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together19,053 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together53,532 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together88,785 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (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
- Eggs
- Yolks thicken and enrich the filling, while whipped whites add lightness and structure.
- Corn-starch
- Gelatinizes when boiled, thickening the milk mixture into a smooth custard.
- Milk
- Forms the liquid base of the custard that the starch and eggs set in.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the filling and balances the sharpness of the lemon.
- Lemon
- Grated yellow peel adds bright aroma and a citrus flavour.
The step that matters
Boil the cornstarch mixture for 2 minutes. Cornstarch granules only swell and thicken fully once the mixture reaches a boil and is held there briefly. Stopping early leaves the filling thin and prone to weeping once it cools.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, corn, sugar, egg):
- Vanillafits better
- Coconutfits better
- Figfits better
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against milk, corn, sugar, egg. 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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