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Pineapple Punch

A chilled pineapple punch with tea, citrus, grape juice, and ice, garnished with violets.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Pineapple Punch

Why it works: Orange and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Pineapple Punch

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Cook the grated pineapple with water for 15 minutes.

  2. Strain the mixture through cheesecloth.

  3. Boil sugar with water for 10 minutes to make syrup.

Assemble and serve

  1. Add syrup, tea, orange juice, lemon juice, and grape juice to the strained pineapple mixture.

  2. Pour into a punch bowl over a large lump of ice.

  3. Garnish each cup with fresh violets when serving.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Pineapple + grapetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together709 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  3. Pineapple + orangetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,664 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  4. Orange + grapetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,771 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Tea + lemontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together610 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Grated pineapple
Provides the main fruit flavor and body once cooked and strained.
Sugar
Sweetens the punch and, boiled into syrup, balances the citrus acidity.
Orange juice
Adds sweetness and bright citrus aroma.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the punch and cuts the sweetness.
Grape juice
Adds fruity sweetness and deepens the color.

The step that matters

Straining the pineapple mixture. Cooking the grated pineapple releases pulp and fibers; straining through cheesecloth removes them so the punch stays clear and smooth rather than gritty.

Swap the grape

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pineapple, sugar, tea, orange, lemon):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Peachfits better
  4. Grapethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pineapple, sugar, tea, orange, 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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