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Dessert

Lemon Pie

A lemon pie with a meringue topping made from corn starch, sugar, egg, butter, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Corn and lemon 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

Make the filling

  1. Moisten corn starch with cold water.

  2. Add boiling water and stir over heat until it boils and cooks for 2-3 minutes.

  3. Remove from heat and let cool slightly.

  4. Stir in butter, sugar, beaten egg, lemon juice, and lemon rind.

Top and bake

  1. Top with meringue and bake.

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. Corn + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,927 recipes

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

  2. Corn + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,345 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked 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

Corn starch
Thickens the filling as its starch swells and sets when boiled with water.
Egg
Adds richness and helps thicken the filling once it is stirred in.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and balances the sourness of the lemon.
Lemon
Provides the tart acidity and bright aroma that define the filling.
Butter
Adds fat for a smoother, richer texture in the filling.

The step that matters

Boil the cornstarch mixture for 2-3 minutes. Cornstarch granules must be heated to boiling and held there so they swell and gelatinize. If the mixture is undercooked, it stays thin and the filling may not set properly.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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