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 ↓
Other Sweet Dishes
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the juice
Dice the pineapple into small pieces.
Pour the spring water over the pineapple and heat gently.
Boil until the pineapple is extremely tender, then strain the juice through a cloth or muslin strainer.
Make the syrup
Mix the strained juice with the sugar and dissolve it.
Boil the syrup gently for 15 minutes until bright in color.
Store
Store in a jar covered with paper for up to weeks.
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
- Supplies the fruit juice that forms the flavour base of the syrup.
- Fine sugar
- Sweetens the juice and, when boiled, thickens it into a syrup.
The step that matters
Boil the syrup gently for 15 minutes. Boiling concentrates the juice and sugar, so the syrup thickens as water evaporates. Boiling too hard or too long can caramelise the sugar and darken or change the flavour, so a gentle simmer keeps it bright and clean.
“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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