My Great Aunt Em made these pies for family dinners when she visited for
holidays. When she first showed up she'd slice the lemons from her purse, sugar
them, and let them sit for a couple of days while she chain-smoked Camels from that purse she never put down
and entertained us with stories about her sister, our Granny...
Meyer lemons might be the best, but others work almost as well. They
should be ripe to the point where the skin is softened. Use a
very sharp knife to slice them to minimize loss of juice, slice them as
thin as possible, and slice them over a plate to catch any juice that
might be lost. Pick any seeds out with the tip of the knife and
avoid getting them into the slices -- they are very bitter and even a
small bit of seed will ruin a bite of pie.
She carried the recipe, hand copied, on 3X5 cards in her purse, along with the Camels,
and gave a copy to whoever raved about the pie. I think the pie offset the effects of the Camels
and got her to 80+ years, outliving her younger sister.
It's hard to get the proportions and baking time perfect so that
the filling hangs together with only eggs and sugar without
any flour or cornstarch, so it's easy to make Aunt Em's pie that doesn't set.
I believe she snuck cornstarch in when nobody was looking
and have added cornstarch to the mix.
Aunt Joyce added shredded coconut when Aunt Em wasn't around, and these were fine, too.
INGREDIENTS:
- 3 or 4 good sized lemons
- 1 1/2 to 2 cups white or turbanado sugar
- 3 heaping teaspoons corn starch
- 4 eggs
- Pastry for a 9 inch, two crust pie, 1 1/2 cups unbleached white
flour, 1 stick cold butter, and minimum freezing water, 6 - 9 tablespoons,
blended in a cold bowl until it's like a mixture of peas and cornmeal, then kneeded quickly,
divided into two balls, powdered with flour and chilled thoroughly
in a damp towel before rolling out on a floured board. Or, get Pillsbury...
Aunt Em's fingers were chilly enough she could blend flour with them and not melt the butter, the rest of us better use a pastry blender.
DIRECTIONS:
- Slice the lemons as described above and put in a container that can be covered. Add the sugar and let the mixture sit for a day or two. Occasonally shake the container. It's OK to let it sit unrefrigerated, maybe even desirable.
- When ready to make the pie, preheat the oven to 450
- Beat the eggs and corn starch with a mixer until they are as stiff as whole eggs can get.
- Add the lemon/sugar mixture to the beaten eggs and fold it all together with a spatula, mixing well but trying not to break down the beaten eggs.
- Put the pie together, crimping the top & bottom of the crust
together well so that the lemon/egg mix can't leak. Poke the top
crust with a fork in several places, avoiding the edges and wiggling
the fork a bit to make sure the holes will vent without leaking.
- Put the pie in the hot oven with a timer set for ten or twelve minutes. When the crust is nicely browned reduce the heat to 350 and bake for another forty five minutes or an hour, until a knife or toothpick comes back dry.
- Let the pie cool for several minutes until the filling settles down, then flip it out of the pan onto a rack so that the bottom crust stays crisp as the pie cools.
- Serve at room temperature or chilled.