Pie - Lemon Chess Pie

By BlueSchmoo

A cousin to custard and translucent pies, the chess variety has been around since the 1800s. The pie may make use of everyday ingredients, but its signature crackly cornmeal exterior and rich lemony flavor are far from ordinary

Use your favorite pie dough or our Single-Crust Pie Dough (see related recipe). Regular yellow cornmeal (not stone ground) works best here. Make the filling before baking the shell so the cornmeal has time to soften. Adding the filling when the pie shell is still warm reduces the pie’s cooking time slightly.

Ingredients

• 5 large eggs
• 1 3/4 cups plus 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1 tablespoon grated lemon zest and 3 tablespoons juice from 1 lemon
• 2 tablespoons cornmeal
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly
• 1 (9-inch) pie shell, chilled (see note)

Details

Servings 8
Adapted from cookscountry.com

Preparation

Step 1

1. MAKE FILLING Whisk eggs in large bowl until smooth. Slowly whisk in 1¾ cups sugar, lemon zest and juice, cornmeal, and salt until -combined. Whisk in butter.

2. BAKE CRUST Poke pie shell all over with fork. Refrigerate 40 minutes, then freeze 20 minutes. Adjust oven rack to upper-middle position and heat oven to 450 degrees. Bake shell until small bubbles appear and surface begins to look dry, about 8 minutes. Remove from oven. Reduce oven temperature to 325 degrees.

3. BAKE PIE Whisk filling briefly to recombine. Scrape filling into prepared pie shell and bake until surface is light brown and center jiggles slightly when shaken, 35 to 40 minutes. Sprinkle with remaining teaspoon sugar. Cool -completely on wire rack, about 4 hours. Serve. (Pie can be refrigerated, covered with plastic wrap, for 2 days.)