MAKE FILLING Whisk eggs in large bowl until smooth. Slowly whisk in 1 3/4 cups sugar, lemon zest and juice, cornmeal, and salt until -combined. Whisk in butter.

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.

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.)

Docking the Crust

Old recipes for pie crusts used less fat than buttery modern versions. Those crusts were tougher, and probably not as tasty, but they had one clear advantage: a custardy chess pie filling wouldnt have made them sodden, so they didnt require pre-baking. Today, the usual way to avoid sodden crust is to bind bake, a term that means baking an empty pie shell filled with pie weights until its set. We found a quicker, easier way to par-bake that still keeps our crust crisp.

DOCK Use a fork to poke holes all over the pie shell. The holes will allow steam to escape when the pie crust is baking, in turn helping the shell hold its shape.

CHILL Refrigerate the crust for 40 minutes, then freeze it for 20 so the gluten in the flour can relax, and the fat in the crust can firm up and hold its shape in the oven.

BAKE Parbake the shell at high heat. Remove it from the oven once it starts to bubble (after about 8 minutes); the shell will look dry, and the holes will fill.