Pineapple

peppercorn crusted pineapple spears
cilantro poached pineapple with lime coconut mousse

presentation

  • do not cut into rings
  • cut into slices by halving, quartering and eighting the pineapple
  • clean it off well and then feel it for any burrs or hard edges

grilling

  • grill pineapple quarters dressed with a little buckwheat honey
  • peppercorn crusted grilled pineapple spears
  • Serve them with ice cream as soon as they come hot off the grill.
  • Carlos Sandoval knows his way around a pineapple.
  • He snaps a huge, ripe fruit from its plant,
  • breaks off the prickly crown with his bare hands, then deftly skins the juicy bromeliad using a machete.
  • He walks around our tour group, individually slicing pineapple rounds and offering them to us.
  • My slice is lemon-yellow, patterned with symmetrical gold circles Sandoval says show its ripeness.
  • One bite confirms this — it's incredibly sweet, but not overly soft like its canned cousins.
  • I'm at the Maui Pineapple Company's Honolua Plantation on Maui.
  • Here, 500 hectares of pineapples stretch toward the horizon.
  • Back in the 1980s, Hawaii was still one of the world's powerhouse pineapple producers, though a lot has changed since.
  • Canned pineapples are out, largely replaced by whole fresh fruits flown in from Asia and Latin America, where most are grown these days.
  • Hawaii now produces only 10% of the planet's pineapples.
  • Shipping and labour costs are the main reasons Hawaiian production has waned, Sandoval explains.
  • Even if you can't make it to a Hawaiian pineapple plantation to sample the fruit in its iconic state, it's easy to suss it out locally and incorporate it into Canadian cooking.
  • Here's how to ensure you get a good one: 1. Ogle it.
  • It should have big, round eyes.
  • Its colour should be green with traces of gold.
  • Smell it.
  • Sweet and fresh but not sickly —
  • an over-the-top fermenting odour means it's past its best-before date.
  • Feel it. It should be heavy and firm,
  • not rock-hard, mushy or bruised.
  • Thump it.
  • Hear that hollow sound? Good.
  • 2. Slice off the crown, discard.
  • 3. Turn the pineapple upside down and store on a plate in your fridge overnight.
  • (The fruit's bottom is its sweetest asset and this position helps all those juices trickle down.)
  • 4. Slice off the base.
  • 5. Skin off the sides.
  • Be sure to go deep enough to remove the eye remnants, but not too deep as the flesh is sweetest closest to the skin.
  • 6. Whether you slice it in rounds or quarter it, remember to remove the core, which can be tough and rather tasteless.
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