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 ↓
Lemon Cream 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
In a bowl, combine sugar, water, grated potato, lemon juice, and lemon rind.
Assemble and bake
Pour the mixture into a prepared pie crust.
Cover with another layer of pastry.
Bake at 350°F (175°C) until the crust is golden and the filling is set.
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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Potato + lemontop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,230 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together53,532 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Sugar + potatotop 30% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together3,032 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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
- Sugar
- Provides sweetness and helps give the filling its body as it sets.
- Raw potato
- Grated potato thickens the filling as it cooks, giving it a creamy texture.
- Lemon
- Supplies acidity and aroma from the juice and rind.
The step that matters
Bake until the filling is set. Grated raw potato thickens as its starch gelatinizes during baking. Pulling the pie too early leaves a runny filling, while the crust needs to turn golden for even browning.
Swap the potato
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, lemon):
- Arrowrootfits better
- Sweet potatofits better
- Kalefits better
- Potatothe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, lemon. 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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