Why it works: Apple and ginger are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,424 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓
To Preserve Pine Apples
Ingredients
Directions
Salt the pineapple
Soak the pine apples in a mixture of salt and water for five days.
Place a large handful of vine leaves in the bottom of a large saucepan.
Add the pine apples to the saucepan.
Cover the pine apples with more vine leaves.
Pour the saltwater mixture over the pine apples and cover tightly.
Set the saucepan over a low fire until the pine apples turn a light green.
Make the syrup and preserve
Prepare a thin syrup by boiling 1 quart of water with 1 pound of sugar until nearly cold.
Pour the syrup into a deep jar.
Add the pine apple to the jar with the top intact.
Let the jar stand for a week, ensuring it is well covered with syrup.
Boil the syrup again.
Carefully pour the boiled syrup into the jar without breaking the top of the pine apple.
Let the jar stand for 8 to 10 weeks, boiling the syrup 2 or 3 times to prevent molding.
When the pine apple looks full and green, remove it from the syrup.
Finish and seal
Make a thick syrup with 3 pounds of sugar and enough water to dissolve it, boiling and skimming well.
Add a few slices of white ginger to the syrup.
When nearly cold, pour the syrup over the pine apple.
Seal the jar with a bladder.
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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Apple + gingertop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,424 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Pine + gingertop 10% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together58 recipes
Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
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Sugar + gingertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together14,054 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
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Pine + appletop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together98 recipes
Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
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Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together16,478 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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
- Pine apples
- The fruit that is preserved, becoming firm and green as it is salted and syruped.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the fruit and, at high concentration, preserves it by drawing out water.
- Coarse sea salt
- Draws water out of the pineapple and firms its flesh before the syrup is added.
The step that matters
Boiling the syrup again before pouring it over the fruit. Heating the syrup kills microbes and mould spores that could spoil the fruit during its long standing time, and the syrup must be well covered over the fruit to keep air away.
Swap the apple
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pine, sugar, ginger):
- Lemonfits better
- Limefits better
- Cherryfits better
- Applethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against pine, 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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