Tuesday, June 5, 2012

Kitchen Tip: Slicing Pineapple

The pineapple is part of the Bromeliad family – and the pineapple is pretty much the only edible member of this botanical family. 

Pineapples are a “mutliple fruit”, which means that many flowers were fertilized and together they form one giant fruit.  This means, that each section of the pineapple produced flowers – sometimes these beautiful purple flowers can reach a count over 200 on one pineapple! 

I had the priviledge of seeing pineapples up close on their parent plant when I traveled to Ecuador.  There was nothing like it. 

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Do you enjoy a good pineapple?  We certainly do… but cutting it can be quite the task!  Here’s what I’ve learned about how to slice one:

Start by grabbing the vegetative part of the pineapple that is growing off of the top.  Twist the stem and …

it should pop right off!

Now, slice the top off and start skinning the thing – slicing the outer layer off. 

Now, you have a clean pineapple.

Next up, slice the pineapple down the middle.

Then, slice a few more times until you have sections that are about bite-size in width. 

Slice the center out of each segment, just like this:

Then, slice the strip horizontally into bite sized pieces. 

If you don’t plan on eating all the pineapple within a day or two of slicing, only prepare half of the pineapple.  Leave the other half with the exocarp still on (the outer skin), and wrap it in plastic wrap, storing it in the fridge until you are ready to eat it.  You’ll buy another 3-4 days on the life of your pineapple that way.

How do you cut your pineapple?

5 comments:

  1. This is such a helpful post! I am always so scared to cut into a pineapple but not after reading this!

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    Replies
    1. You're welcome! It took me a long time to figure out a good way to cut the pineapple, so I am glad it is helpful to you!

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  2. I love the tip about preserving the other half! I usually end up with brown pineapple chunks after a few days, so I'm definitely going to try leaving it whole in the skin next time!

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  3. This looks like such an easy way to do it. I avoid buying fresh pineapple because I don't want to deal with cutting it. I even bought a special tool that was supposed to cut pineapples, but I ended up injuring myself every time I used it, so to the donation pile it went! I'll try again using your method - I think I can handle it!

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  4. I cut all around the core and then I chop the core into cubes and freeze them and put the into smoothies! So much better than ice!

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Thanks for stopping by! I'd love to hear from you; especially how you're finding JOY in your kitchen.

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