I made my first chess pie for my niece Lauren. She loves them. A true southern pie, it must have cornmeal in the filling to be called a chess pie. History is, it was called jess pie, then with the advent of pie chests, chest pie. Somewhere on it became Chess Pie. It really was good and after it cools, just melts in your mouth. Here's the recipe I used.
Browned Butter Chess Pie
6 tablespoons butter
3 large eggs
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/4 cups sugar
1 tablespoon yellow cornmeal
1 tablespoon all purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees. Cook butter in a skillet over medium heat, stirring often (5 to 6 minutes) until butter just begins to turn brown. Remove from heat. Whisk together eggs, lemon juice and vanilla till smooth. Add sugar then cornmeal, flour and salt and stir. Whisk in browned butter. Pour mixture into piecrust of your choice. Bake 30 to 35 minutes or until top is lightly browned. Cool on wire rack.
As an experienced pie baker, I tweaked the recipe. It had some rigamarole about pre-baking the crust with pie weights for a time which I did not do. Also, I doubled the filling recipe and used slightly more butter. For my piecrust, I use both butter and shortening. It turned out perfect.
