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 ↓
Pine-Jpples
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the pineapples
Select unripe pineapples and soak them in a mixture of salt and water for five days.
In a large saucepan, place a handful of vine leaves and add the pineapples.
Cover the pineapples with more vine leaves and pour the saltwater mixture over them.
Cover the saucepan tightly and place it over a low heat until the pineapples 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 dissolved.
Once the syrup is nearly cold, pour it into a deep jar and add the pineapples with their tops intact.
Let the pineapples sit in the syrup for a week, ensuring they are well covered.
After a week, boil the syrup again and carefully pour it back into the jar without breaking the tops of the pineapples.
Allow the jar to sit for 8 to 10 weeks, boiling the syrup 2 or 3 times during this period to prevent mold.
When the pineapples look full and green, remove them from the syrup and prepare a thick syrup with 3 pounds of sugar and enough water to dissolve it.
Boil and skim the thick syrup, adding a few slices of ginger, then pour it over the pineapples.
Seal the jar tightly with a bladder to preserve the pineapples for many years.
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 + gingertop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together559 recipes
Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).
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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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Pineapple + sugartop 19% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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
- Pineapples
- The fruit that is preserved, turning tender and green as it cures in the syrup.
- Sugar
- Dissolved into syrups that sweeten the fruit and draw out water to preserve it.
- Coarse sea salt
- Salts the pineapples in brine, firming the fruit and drawing out moisture before syrup is added.
The step that matters
Boiling the syrup during the 8 to 10 week rest. Repeated boiling of the syrup helps kill mold spores and keeps the sugar concentration high enough to preserve the fruit over the long rest.
Swap the pineapple
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, ginger):
- Lemonfits better
- Orangefits better
- Limefits better
- 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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