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 ↓
Dixie Pineapple Cider
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Chop the rind of the pineapple finely.
Put the chopped rind into a pitcher with the cold water.
Ferment
Cover the pitcher with a thin cloth and let it stand for 2-3 days until it ferments.
Finish and bottle
Strain off the water and sweeten it to taste.
Bottle the cider, wiring the corks, and lay the bottles on their sides for 48 hours.
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 + sugartop 19% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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 rind
- Supplies natural sugars and wild yeasts that drive the fermentation into cider.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness to the finished cider, balancing the tartness produced by fermentation.
The step that matters
Letting the cider ferment for 2-3 days. The pitcher must be covered with a thin cloth so air-borne yeasts and fruit flies can enter while dust and debris are kept out. Fermentation converts sugar to alcohol and carbon dioxide, so too little time leaves the cider flat and sweet.
“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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