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Dessert

Gelee D’ Ananas —

A clear pineapple jelly made with sugar, lemon juice, and clarified isinglass.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Pineapple and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,964 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Gelee D’ Ananas —

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pineapple

  1. Remove the rind from the pineapple. Cut the pineapple in half lengthwise.

  2. Slice the pineapple into pieces 1/6 inch thick.

Make the jelly

  1. Simmer the slices in boiling sugar for 5 minutes.

  2. Let the syrup cool.

  3. Add the juice of two lemons and the clarified isinglass.

  4. Remove the fruit.

  5. Strain the jelly through a cloth.

Layer and set

  1. Pour a quarter of the jelly into a cylinder mold on ice.

  2. Let it firm up.

  3. Layer the pineapple pieces in the mold.

  4. Pour more jelly over the pineapple.

  5. Repeat layering until complete.

  6. Finish the jelly.

  7. Serve as usual.

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 + lemontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,964 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  2. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Pineapple + sugartop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,841 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Pineapple
Provides the main fruit flavour and the pieces that are suspended in the set jelly.
Sugar
Sweetens the jelly and helps build the syrup that the fruit is cooked in.
Lemons
Add acidity that brightens the sweet pineapple flavour.
Clarified isinglass
A gelatin-like setting agent that firms the liquid into a sliceable jelly.

The step that matters

Pouring the first layer onto ice and letting it firm up. The jelly must be cold enough to set before fruit is added; if it is still liquid, the pineapple pieces will sink or drift instead of staying layered in the mold.

Swap the pineapple

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

  1. Orangefits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Vanillafits better
  4. Pineapplethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, lemon. 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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