The taste of home
This lemon pie creates those homey feelings
In the decade I spent working in restaurant kitchens, I rarely felt an emotional connection with the food I was cooking.
This feeling of distance from the food I encountered here in the United States began almost as soon as I arrived from Nigeria as a young college student. Very few dishes I ate growing up were reflected in the dining hall food served in my university, nor was there evidence of them in the recipes I fastidiously honed in culinary school after college, and in my first restaurant jobs in Baltimore. When I moved to Atlanta in 2006, Edna Lewis, the great American chef and cookbook author, had just died. At the two restaurants where I worked, I started making Lewis’ recipes, and began seeing in my own two hands the food that transported me home.
I bought a copy of “The Gift of Southern Cooking” only when I was leaving Atlanta, bound for new opportunities in New York.
This recipe is part of my idea of home. Although it is inspired by Lewis’ buttermilk chess pie, it allowed me to bridge the gap between my two food worlds.
Lemon Buttermilk Chess Pie With Black Pepper Crust
With a sparkling bright lemon flavor, this classic Southern buttermilk chess pie filling is poured into a shortbread crust with hints of spice from freshly ground black pepper. The coarse cornmeal gives the beautiful custardy filling the slightest bit of texture once baked. Yield: 8 to 10 servings
Total time: 1 hour, plus at least 50 minutes of chilling Ingredients:
For the crust:
6 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch cubes, plus more for preparing the pan
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/3 cup sugar
1 teaspoon kosher salt (Diamond Crystal)
1 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 tablespoon freshly grated lemon zest
2 egg yolks
1/4 cup cold water
For the Filling:
3 whole eggs
3 egg yolks
1 1/4 cups sugar
1/4 cup medium-coarse yellow cornmeal
1/4 cup lemon juice
1 tablespoon grated lemon zest
1 teaspoon kosher salt (Diamond Crystal)
1 cup buttermilk, preferably full-fat
1/4 cup unsalted butter, melted
Whipped heavy cream for serving
Preparation:
1. Prepare the pie crust: Generously butter a 10-inch round, fluted tart pan or a 9-inch round pie dish. In a medium bowl, combine the flour, sugar, salt, black pepper and lemon zest. Working quickly, rub the cold butter into the dry mixture
using your fingers or a pastry cutter. Cut the butter into the flour until the pieces are the size of small pebbles. (Alternatively, use a food processor to pulse the dry ingredients with the butter.) Add the egg yolks and the cold water. Using your hands, combine just until the dough comes together in clumps. Gather dough into a ball; flatten into a disk, wrap in plastic and chill at least 30 minutes.
2. Heat oven to 375 degrees. Roll out chilled dough between two sheets of parchment or on a lightly floured surface to a 12inch round. Using the rolling pin, transfer dough into the prepared tart pan. Press the dough into the fluted sides and trim any overhang to 1/4 inch above the pan. If using a pie dish, skip the pressing step and trim any overhang to 1/4 inch above the inside of the dish. Chill the dough again for at least 20 minutes.
3. Line the pie dough with parchment paper and fill with pie weights or dried beans. Bake until the crust is lightly browned along the edges and
beginning to firm up, about 18 minutes. Remove the pie weights and parchment and bake for an additional 5 minutes to lightly brown the edges. Press down the surface with the back of a spoon if the crust bubbles. Allow the crust to cool completely before filling. Adjust the oven temperature to 350 degrees.
4. As the crust cools, prepare the filling: Whisk together eggs, yolks, sugar, cornmeal, lemon juice and zest and salt in a medium bowl. Stir in buttermilk and the melted butter.
5. Place the tart pan on a rimmed baking sheet and carefully pour the filling into the cooled pie shell. Bake until the filling is set and jiggles slowly when the pie pan is moved back and forth, about 35 to 40 minutes. Cool pie completely before slicing. Top with a dusting of powdered sugar and serve at room temperature or cold, with some whipped heavy cream on the side.