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Dessert

Carrot and Pineapple

A sweet preserve made from carrot, pineapple, syrup, and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and corn match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 794 recipes. Both carry (e)-2-octenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Carrot and Pineapple

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the fruit

  1. Shred the pineapple and cook it until tender.

  2. Add the quartered and thinly sliced lemon.

Thicken and jar

  1. Boil the ingredients slowly until thick, without stirring.

  2. Pack into hot jars and sterilize.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Carrot + corntop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together794 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  2. Carrot + lemontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,351 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Pineapple + lemontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,964 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Corn + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,927 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Carrot + pineappletop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together221 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Ground carrot
Adds body and a mild sweetness that fills out the preserve.
Shredded pineapple
Provides the main fruit flavor and bulk as it cooks down.
Corn syrup or honey
Sweetens and thickens the preserve and helps keep it smooth rather than grainy.
Lemon
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and helps the preserve set.

The step that matters

Boil slowly until thick, without stirring. Thickening depends on water evaporating while the sugar concentrates. A slow boil lets this happen evenly without scorching on the bottom of the pot. Stopping too early leaves a runny preserve, and cooking too long makes it stiff once cooled.

Swap the pineapple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, corn, lemon):

  1. Limefits better
  2. Orangefits better
  3. Avocadofits better
  4. Pineapplethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, corn, lemon. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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