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Brandied Pineapples

Preserved pineapples soaked in white preserving brandy with sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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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 ↓

Brandied Pineapples

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pineapple

  1. Peel the pineapple and remove the eyes.

  2. Tear the fruit from the core with a fork or cut it into dice.

Pack and store

  1. Pack self-sealing jars with the pineapple, sprinkling sugar on each layer.

  2. Pour in white preserving brandy slowly until the jars are full.

  3. Screw down the tops and store in a dark place.

  4. Let it season for several weeks before using.

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. Pineapple + brandytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together298 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

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

  3. Sugar + brandytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked 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

What each ingredient does

Pineapple
Provides the fruit that softens and absorbs the brandy and sugar as it macerates.
Granulated sugar
Sweetens the fruit and draws out juice, helping the pineapple steep in the brandy.
White preserving brandy
Acts as the preserving liquid, flavouring the fruit and keeping it from spoiling.

The step that matters

Pour in the brandy slowly until the jars are full. Pouring slowly lets the brandy settle through the packed fruit and sugar without trapping air pockets. Full jars leave little headspace, which helps keep the fruit submerged and limits spoilage during the long seasoning period.

Swap the pineapple

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Apricotfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. 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.

“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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