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
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.
Prepare the crust
Make a pie crust and bake it.
Make the filling
In a saucepan, combine cold water, beaten egg yolks, cornstarch, sugar, grated lemon rind, and lemon juice.
Cook the mixture over medium heat until thickened.
Pour the mixture into the baked crust.
Top and bake
Beat the egg whites until stiff, adding sugar to taste, then spread over the filling.
Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) until the meringue is golden brown.
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
- Egg yolks
- Thicken the filling and add richness as they set with the cornstarch.
- Cornstarch
- Thickens the lemon mixture into a sliceable filling when heated.
- Egg whites
- Whipped into a foam that forms the meringue topping and sets when baked.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the filling and helps stabilize the whipped egg white meringue.
- Lemon juice
- Adds acidity that balances the sweetness and gives the filling its tart flavor.
The step that matters
Cook the filling until thickened. Cornstarch only thickens fully when the mixture reaches a boil and is stirred, so stopping early leaves a runny filling that will not hold its shape when sliced.
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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