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Pineapple Preserves

A sweet pineapple preserve made by boiling pineapple, layering with sugar, and cooking in syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Pineapple and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,841 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Pineapple Preserves

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Cut off part of the pineapple stem, leaving 1 to 2 inches on the fruit.

  2. Place the pineapple in a pot of water (preferably copper) and boil for 5 hours or more.

  3. Test the fruit by running a straw through it; do not let it get too soft.

  4. Once ready, peel the pineapple, removing the eyes, and slice it into thick slices.

  5. Cut out the core and weigh the fruit.

Macerate and make the syrup

  1. Layer the fruit and sugar alternately in a stone or earthen jar, covering the top with sugar, and let it sit overnight.

  2. In the morning, drain off the syrup, scraping every piece of fruit with a silver knife.

  3. Bring the syrup to a boil and skim off any foam.

Cook and jar

  1. Carefully add the fruit to the boiling syrup and cook for 10 minutes.

  2. Remove the fruit and place it in jars.

  3. Continue to cook the syrup until it thickens, then pour it over the fruit, covering it well.

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 + 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
Provides the fruit that softens and becomes the body of the preserve.
Granulated sugar
Draws moisture out of the fruit and, as it thickens, sets the syrup and preserves the fruit.

The step that matters

Continue to cook the syrup until it thickens. Sugar concentration must rise enough to thicken the syrup and inhibit spoilage microbes. Stopping early leaves a thin syrup that may ferment, while overcooking can make the fruit tough or the sugar crystallise.

“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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