Why it works: Lemon and sugar 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 Pib
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 the lemons
Boil the lemons in water until a straw can penetrate the skin.
Remove the lemons.
Chop them finely.
Take out the seeds.
Make the filling
In a saucepan, combine the sugar and water.
Boil and skim until it forms a nice syrup.
Add the chopped lemons to the syrup.
Let it cool.
Assemble and bake
Cover a shallow plate with pie paste.
Add the lemon mixture.
Spread it nearly to the edge.
Cover with another layer of pie paste.
Cut a slit in the center.
Bake at 350°F (175°C) until golden.
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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Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together53,532 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
- Lemons
- Provide the main flavour and the tart, bitter-edged pulp and peel that form the filling.
- Light brown sugar
- Sweetens the filling and, boiled into syrup, thickens it and softens the chopped lemon.
- Pie paste
- Forms the crust that encloses the filling and browns in the oven.
The step that matters
Boiling the lemons until a straw penetrates the skin. Boiling softens the whole fruit, including the thick peel and pith, so it becomes tender and less bitter. Undercooked lemons stay tough and sharp, while overcooking can make the pulp mushy.
“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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