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 ↓
Pine-apple
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Slice the fresh pineapple.
Sprinkle sugar over the slices and let sit.
Cook and bottle
Combine pineapple and sugar in a pot.
Boil for a few minutes.
Bottle the mixture while hot.
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
- Fresh pineapple
- Provides the fruit base and most of the flavor and body of the preserves.
- Sugar
- Draws moisture out of the fruit and helps thicken and preserve the mixture through cooking.
The step that matters
Boil for a few minutes. Boiling concentrates the sugar and fruit juices and drives off water, which thickens the preserves. Stopping too early leaves them runny, while cooking too long can make them overly stiff or caramelized.
“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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