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Dessert

Pie Plant Custard Pie

A custard pie made with pie plant, eggs, butter, sugar, flour, and topped with meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Pie Plant 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.

Make the filling

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a bowl, mix the egg yolks, butter, stewed pie plant, sugar, and flour until well combined.

  3. Pour the mixture into a prepared pie crust and bake until set.

Make the meringue and finish

  1. In another bowl, beat the egg whites until soft peaks form, then gradually add 3 tablespoons of sugar and continue beating until stiff peaks form.

  2. Spread the meringue over the baked pie and return to the oven to brown the top.

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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + buttertop 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).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
Thicken the filling as they set, giving the custard its rich body.
Egg whites
Whipped into a foam, they form the meringue topping that stays light and airy.
Stewed pie plant
Supplies moisture and tart flavour that balances the sweetness of the custard.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and, in the meringue, helps the whites hold stiff peaks.
Flour
Helps stabilise the custard filling so it sets smoothly rather than weeping.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites to stiff peaks. Under-beaten whites collapse and weep under the topping, while over-beaten whites turn dry and grainy. Sugar added gradually dissolves and stabilises the foam, so the meringue holds its shape and browns evenly.

“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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