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 ↓
Lemon Pie
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the filling
Grate the lemon rind and squeeze out the juice, straining it over the rind.
Combine sugar and butter in a bowl.
Bring boiling water to a boil, moisten corn starch and stir it in.
Pour the boiling mixture over the sugar and butter, then add the lemon rind and juice.
Once slightly cool, stir in the beaten yolks of two eggs.
Assemble and bake
Butter a deep plate and cover it with cracker dust to form the crust.
Pour the lemon mixture into the crust and bake.
Frost with beaten egg whites and brown in the oven.
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 + corntop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,927 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Butter + corntop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,345 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).
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Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,227 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
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Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together98,233 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Eggs
- Yolks thicken the filling and egg whites form the frosting that browns on top.
- Corn starch
- Starch swells in the boiling water and thickens the filling into a set custard.
- Butter
- Adds richness and fat that gives the filling a smooth, rounded flavor.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the filling and balances the sharp acidity of the lemon.
- Lemon
- Supplies the juice and rind that give the filling its tart, aromatic flavor.
The step that matters
Adding the yolks after the mixture cools slightly. Egg yolks scramble if they meet very hot liquid, leaving lumps. Letting the filling cool slightly before stirring in the beaten yolks lets them blend smoothly and thicken gently.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, egg, butter, corn):
- Vanillafits better
- Coconutfits better
- Figfits about as well
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, butter, 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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