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Dessert

Mrs. Tirrell's Lemon Pie

A lemon custard pie topped with meringue, baked until set.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and corn are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,927 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Mrs. Tirrell's 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.

Make the filling

  1. Mix lemon juice, grated rind, egg yolks, sugar, and corn starch made smooth in a little cold water.

  2. Pour in boiling water, let cool, then add salt.

  3. Line a deep pie plate with pastry and pour in the lemon mixture.

  4. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven until set.

Top with meringue

  1. Beat egg whites with fine sugar until soft peaks form.

  2. Spread the meringue over the baked pie and brown lightly in the oven.

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.

  1. Lemon + corntop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,927 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  2. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  4. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Sugar + corntop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,168 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

Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the filling, adding richness and a smooth set.
Corn starch
Thickens the lemon mixture as it heats, giving the filling body.
Lemon juice
Provides acidity and bright flavour that balances the sugar.
Egg whites
Whip into a foam that forms the meringue topping and gives lift.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps stabilise the whipped egg white meringue.

The step that matters

Beat the egg whites until soft peaks form. Egg whites must be whipped to a stable foam before spreading. Under-beaten whites stay runny and may weep, while over-beaten whites turn dry and grainy, so the meringue may not hold its shape or brown well.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar, corn):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Coconutfits about as well
  3. Raisinfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, corn. 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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