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Corn-Starch Custard Pie

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and corn are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,955 recipes. Both carry hexanal, which smells green, grassy. The science ↓

Corn-Starch Custard 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.

  1. Heat the milk to a boil.

  2. Stir in the corn-starch dissolved in a little cold milk and cook for 1 minute, stirring constantly.

  3. Remove from heat and let cool.

  4. Prepare a stiff cream paste using equal parts Graham flour and white flour, and line the pie pans with it.

  5. Set the lined pans in the oven to heat through.

  6. Beat the yolks and 1 of the egg whites together, then whip in ½ cup of sugar and stir into the milk.

  7. Fill the pie pans with the custard and bake at 350°F (175°C) until just set.

  8. Beat the remaining egg whites, lemon juice, and the rest of the sugar together, then spread over the tops.

  9. Close the oven and heat until the meringue is lightly browned.

  10. Remove the pies, slip them onto plates, and set in a cool place.

  11. Serve cold or nearly so, soon after baking.

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. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

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

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

  3. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  5. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 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

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against quail, milk, sugar, egg, corn. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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