I’m up. It’s only 6:14 am. The cat wanted me to get up, so he roamed the house calling out, “Hurow? Hurow?”
I swear he tries to enunciate but he still sounds like Scooby Do.
My sister wanted my lemon meringue recipe. Enough about cats for now. Last Saturday, Mike came home from an Eagle Scout celebration with leftovers from a catering job: fettuccini, garlic bread, and meatballs. Nick was excited to try them, but afterward, he said, “Mom, the fettuccini was good, but not as good as yours.
Oh, the glow. It made me feel lit inside.
I’m not going to quit my job and start a catering truck, but it felt good. I’ve been getting back to enjoying cooking again, mostly. It’s hard, but I’m taking the time to make stuff now and then just to be on my feet for longer and longer every day. The doctor says I should respect my limits but push up against them. Ugh. Enough about my limits.
I have a complicated relationship with giving out recipes. I once gave out my lemon meringue recipe to a coworker who begged for it so he could make it with his daughter, but after he tried it, he popped into my office on a Monday before I’d had a chance to drink my coffee and figure out my strategy for the day. He complained to me that my pie came out bitter. My pie? His pie. They must have zested the hell out of their lemons, I said. I must have left an ingredient out of the recipe, he said. I tried to sound conciliatory when I explained how to zest the lemons, but I was secretly happy it didn’t work, partly because the guy was mad at me because he didn’t know how to zest a lemon. And I wasn’t awake yet. And he accused me of sabotaging time with his daughter. What am I saying? I still feel that same feeling, secretly happy mine was better.
. Why do I have to be this way?
So last week, when my sister posted a picture of her lemon meringue pie, overwhipped and flat, I felt another zing of excitement. Mine was better. But I put on my sweet-sister face and replied that it looked delicious all the while thinking about how it was not shiny, tall, and perfectly toasted like mine usually is. I know it’s evil to think all these mean thoughts, but I swear I was externally kind. What do you do when your brain is mean but you want your sister to feel loved? I lied to her. I told her that it looked delicious. It probably was. I told her that her husband must be happy. He probably was.
Then, she asked for my recipe. I call it my recipe, but first it was Mike’s grandma’s recipe and I adjusted some things. One day, when I asked her to help me with the recipe because Mike said it didn’t taste like his grandma’s, she told me to look on the inside of her pantry door. Was she smiling? She said it was taped onto the wall there with some other recipes. When I finally found it, it was a printed Eagle Brand Condensed Milk recipe. I expected something hand-written. It wasn’t her recipe at all! Mike’s grandma had adjusted some parts. She told me it had evolved. I can’t rightfully claim this is my recipe. I stand on the shoulders of giants, as we all do. And Mike’s grandma stood on the shoulders of corporate research.
It is a good recipe. Thank you, Grandma Rose. Thank you Eagle Brand.
For the crust, I blend:
2 cups flour
1 tsp salt
1/3 cup lard
1/3 cup butter
You can substitute as much as three-quarters of a cup of the flour with wheat flour. Any more than that and the crust falls apart when you put it into the pie pan. You can make substitutions to the lard and butter combination too. Using either all lard or all butter works. Lard makes it flaky. Butter makes it taste good. Half of each is a compromise. These days, I use Mike’s soy-free Earth Balance to protect his heart. That crust isn’t as flaky as lard either. That’s a compromise too but I want to keep him healthy. In any case, my sister knows how to make a pie crust and the rest of you can try it or just buy one at the store.
Blend all this together with a pastry blender until it looks like little pebble shapes and then add:
5 tablespoons of cold water
Toss and gently mix this in and let it sit for a few minutes. Don’t go at it or you’ll have a tough crust. That being said, I never get a crust to fold gently over my rolling pin to lay centered in a pie pan. I blame Mike’s Earth Balance, but that stuff tastes good. It’s probably me though. I fiddle with the crust until it’s patched together and you can’t tell it split in half. I trim about a quarter inch outside the edges of the pie pan. I flute the edges by pushing my left thumb into the outside edge of the crust and pushing/folding it between my thumb and index finger like folding paper between gears on an assembly line. I remember asking my mom how to get that last one to fit in there when she got to the end of the circle and she said you just did. I didn’t get it back then, but I do now. I don’t have a better answer than she did.
This will make two open crusts, one for now and one to freeze for later when you don’t really have time to make a pie but want one. I’m talking about an ordinary-sized pie, eight to nine inches. I freeze them unbaked and wrapped tight.
I bake it at 350 degrees for twenty minutes. Sometimes, I use my pie chain to keep bubbles from forming. Sometimes, I don’t.
While the pie is baking, I start the filling and the meringue:
3 large lemons, zested and juiced
When I say zest, I mean you should use the nutmeg grater on your box shredder. Grate enough to get the shine off the lemon, but not enough that the lemon isn’t yellow anymore. I use organic lemons because your family will eat whatever was sprayed on it and I swear those pesticides are bitter. Try not to grate your knuckles. Don’t combine the juice and the zest yet.
Reserve the bowl for your mixer for the meringue. In another bowl, add:
1 can of Eagle Brand sweetened condensed milk
Blend in most of the lemon and most of the zest. Then, bring the lemon-curd-so-far and a tiny spoon to whoever you love best and let them judge how much more lemony and zesty it needs to be. Be prepared for them to want to eat all of what’s in the bowl. I usually add all of my juice but not quite all of my zest.
Once you finish the taste testing, separate your egg whites from the yolks. You don’t need a special tool. I’ve tried lots of them. All you need is clean hands:
3 large eggs at room temperature
I wanted to tell you to take the eggs out earlier, but I really didn’t want you to add the egg yolks to the lemon curd until after the taste test. No one wants to get salmonella.
Here, you need to work over the bowl for your mixer with the lemon curd bowl next to you along with one more small bowl. Gently crack an egg into your hand and let the egg white drool between your fingers into the bowl. It’s a sensory experience. Roll the egg yolk gently back and forth between your hands until the egg white is drained off of it. Sometimes, I pinch that stringy white thing. I’ve always wondered if that was the umbilical cord. Pinch but don’t pull that cord because it’ll break the yolk. If you just now pulled that little cord anyway and broke your yolk, put it into the lemon curd bowl quickly before yolk gets into your meringue. You don’t want to have to dig around in your egg whites to get out bits of egg yolk. Repeat this three times. For the last two eggs, put the yolks into the third bowl. You only need three egg yolks for the lemon curd. I used to cook up the extra egg yolks without salt for Teddy. Now, I cook them for me with a little sea salt and pepper. I still miss that dog and his enthusiasm. The cats might eat a little cooked yolk, but they might turn up their noses too and that’s sad. Hold off on doing anything with those two egg yolks for now. Timing is getting tighter.
After stirring the egg yolks into the lemon curd, pour it into the pie crust and bake until a toothpick comes out clean, about twenty minutes, still at 350 degrees.
About ten minutes into that time, make the meringue:
1/2 cup sugar
1/8 tsp salt or a tip if anyone knows what a tip of salt is
1/4 tsp cream of tartar
I use more sugar than Mike’s grandma used to use because I wanted my meringue to taste like a marshmallow. (In fact, you can use the egg whites, sugar, salt, and tartar to make your own homemade marshmallows. They’re ugly but they taste good.) Beat this at a low speed until it begins to froth. You can beat it by hand, but I strongly recommend using a copper bowl and even then, you’re going to get a workout. Assuming you’re doing it the easy way, gradually raise the speed to your highest level and watch and listen closely. My KitchenAid begins to whine a little lower when the thickness of the meringue slows it down. If I got distracted in another room, that change in pitch will get my attention. I don’t know if every mixer will do that. Mostly, I look at the shine. It’s going to begin to shine like satin. At that point, turn off the mixer and see if you can pull points up with a spoon. If they sag back into the bowl, mix it on high for a little longer. If you start to lose that satiny shine, stop immediately. When you whip it too long, it makes the texture of the meringue a little grainy.
Timing is important here. You don’t want this fluff to sit around too long.
As soon as the lemon curd comes out of the oven, spoon the meringue onto the hot pie. Resist the urge to spread it around. Your job is to protect the tiny bubbles. Make sure the meringue touches the crust edges all around. Don’t ask me why. It’s what I read in multiple places when I read about making sure the meringue was thoroughly cooked and safe to eat. Mostly, putting the meringue on the hot pie cooks it underneath as the top cooks in the oven. I use the tip of the spoon to draw up little spikes on the surface of the meringue. Usually they curl or fold over and I think it looks pretty.
Bake immediately for about fifteen minutes but watch those little spikes. They should be the color of a perfectly toasted marshmallow, a dark golden brown. When it’s finished, show the pie to that person who tasted the lemon curd. Anticipation makes it taste better.
Refrigerate and serve cold. Here’s a warning though. A lot of the meringue’s height will drop in the cool of the fridge. The pie will fill with a sugary syrup from the loss of that height. In the fridge, put the pie on another deep plate so you don’t have a sticky mess to wipe up in there. If you travel with the pie, place it on a plate or a tray and keep it level. That sticky stuff will never quite come out of your upholstery. Truly, I know.
When you cut into the pie, use a hot wet knife. This keeps the meringue from peeling off the top of your pie and sticking to the knife. Give the first piece to the person you love the best.
I promise that I didn’t leave out any ingredients. No, I am not secretly smiling. When Mike’s grandma got old, she really wanted him to have that recipe. I know how she feels. Now, I want you to have it.
Thank you for listening, jules