Why it works: Pineapple and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,964 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Pineapple Water Ice
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the pineapple
Peel and grate the pineapples.
Add the juice of the lemons to the grated pineapple.
Make the syrup
Boil the sugar and water together for 5 minutes.
Combine and freeze
Let the mixture cool, then add the pineapple mixture and strain through a sieve.
Pour into a freezer and freeze.
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 + lemontop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,964 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together53,532 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
-
Pineapple + sugartop 19% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together4,841 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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
What each ingredient does
- Pineapples
- Provide the main fruit flavour and the juice that forms the ice.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the ice and lowers the freezing point so it stays softer and scoopable.
- Lemon juice
- Adds acidity that brightens the pineapple flavour.
The step that matters
Let the syrup cool before adding the fruit. Adding hot syrup to the pineapple can dull its fresh flavour and begin to cook the fruit. Cooling the mixture first keeps the flavour bright and lets the strained mixture freeze evenly.
Swap the pineapple
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, lemon):
- Orangefits better
- Limefits better
- Vanillafits better
- Pineapplethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, 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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