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Whole Pine Apple

A pineapple preserved by boiling in syrup and repeated steeping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Syrup and sugar match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,842 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Whole Pine Apple

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pineapple

  1. Remove the top and stem from the pineapple and prick it all over with a fork.

  2. Boil the pineapple in a pan of water until tender.

  3. Transfer the pineapple to cold water and drain it well.

  4. Place the pineapple in a glass jar or pan.

Syrup soaking

  1. Boil enough syrup to cover the pineapple until it reaches a thread stage, then pour it over the pineapple.

  2. Let the pineapple sit for 2-3 days, then drain the syrup.

  3. Boil the syrup a little longer, skim it, and pour it over the pineapple again.

  4. Repeat this process for three more days, adding new syrup as needed.

Finish and store

  1. On the sixth day, boil the sugar to the great pearl stage, add the pineapple, and bring it to a boil.

  2. Remove from heat, skim well, and place the pineapple in dry pans for storage.

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. Syrup + sugartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Pineapple + syruptop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together568 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Pineapple + sugartop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,841 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

Pineapple
Fruit that is softened by boiling, then soaks up the sugar syrup over several days.
Syrup
Concentrated sugar that sweetens the fruit and helps preserve it by drawing out water.

The step that matters

Boiling the sugar to the great pearl stage on the sixth day. Syrup must be concentrated enough to preserve the fruit and stop it spoiling, but boiled too far it can crystallize. Skimming removes foam and impurities that could spoil the stored pineapple.

Swap the pineapple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (syrup, sugar):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Pearfits about as well
  4. Pineapplethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against syrup, sugar. 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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