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Pineapple and Rhubarb

A fruit preserve made from pineapple and rhubarb cooked 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 rhubarb share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 56 recipes. Both carry methyl cinnamate, which smells strawberry. The science ↓

Pineapple and Rhubarb

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Peel and cut the pineapple into small pieces.

  2. Cut the rhubarb into small pieces.

  3. Weigh the fruit and use 1 pound of sugar for every pound of fruit.

Make the syrup and cook

  1. Make a syrup by boiling the sugar with water until clear.

  2. Add the fruit to the syrup and boil slowly for 45 minutes.

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 + rhubarbtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together56 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  2. Rhubarb + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,852 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).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Pineapple
Adds sweet, tropical flavor and juicy body to the preserve.
Rhubarb
Adds tartness and firm fruit pieces that balance the sweetness.
Sugar
Sweetens the fruit and, at high concentration, helps preserve it and thicken the syrup.

The step that matters

Boil slowly for 45 minutes. Sugar and fruit can scorch on the bottom of the pan if the heat is too high or the mixture is not stirred. Slow boiling lets water evaporate evenly so the syrup thickens without burning.

Swap the pineapple

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Quincefits better
  4. Pineapplethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rhubarb, sugar. 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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