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Preserve

To Preserve Green Pine Apples

A method for preserving green pineapples in saltwater and syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pineapple and ginger work together. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 559 recipes. Both carry methyl 2-methylbutyrate, which smells fruity, apple. The science ↓

To Preserve Green Pine Apples

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pineapples

  1. Soak the pineapples in strong salt and water for five days.

  2. Place a large handful of vine leaves in the bottom of a large saucepan. Add the pineapples to the saucepan, then fill the pan with more vine leaves.

  3. Pour in the saltwater from soaking. Cover tightly.

  4. Cook over low heat until the pineapples turn light green.

Make the syrup and preserve

  1. Prepare a thin syrup by boiling 1 quart of water with 1 pound of sugar until dissolved. Let the syrup cool slightly.

  2. Pour the syrup over the pineapples in a deep jar. Ensure the pineapples are well-covered with syrup.

  3. Let them sit for a week.

  4. Boil the syrup again. Carefully pour the syrup over the pineapples to avoid breaking them.

  5. Let the pineapples sit for 8 to 10 weeks.

  6. Boil the syrup 2 or 3 times to prevent mold. When the syrup is nearly cold, pour it over the pineapples again.

  7. Seal the jar with a bladder to keep the pineapples for many years.

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 + gingertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together559 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  2. Sugar + gingertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together14,054 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

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

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

Sugar and ginger barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 14,054 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

Green pineapples
Main fruit that is firmed and preserved whole in the syrup.
Double refined sugar
Forms the thin syrup that sweetens the fruit and helps preserve it.

The step that matters

Boiling the syrup before each pour. Reboiling the syrup and pouring it over the fruit while hot helps kill mold spores and microbes that could spoil the preserve. Careful pouring keeps the delicate pineapples from breaking.

Swap the pineapple

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

  1. Lemonfits better
  2. Orangefits better
  3. Limefits better
  4. Pineapplethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, ginger. 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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