Why it works: Pineapple and brandy work together. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 298 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓
Preserved Pine Apples
Ingredients
Directions
Cut off the stalks and tops of the pineapples, removing all leaves.
Boil a thin syrup and gently add the pineapples, cooking until tender enough to insert a pin easily.
Leave the pineapples in the syrup overnight.
Drain the syrup and clarify enough sugar to cover the pineapples, using the syrup they were boiled in instead of water.
Cover the pineapples with paper to keep dust off.
Pour off the syrup the next day, boil it briefly, and repeat this every other day for five to six times until the syrup thickens.
Once cold, cover the pineapples with paper dipped in brandy and tie it down.
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.
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Pineapple + brandytop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together298 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
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Pineapple + sugartop 19% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together4,841 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Sugar + brandytop 19% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together11,939 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Sugar and brandy barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 11,939 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
Swap the pineapple
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, brandy):
- Vanillafits better
- Apricotfits better
- Raisinfits better
- Pineapplethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, brandy. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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