Are you grilling some food tonight? Then try this Grilled Pineapple Recipe while you're at it. I like the idea of making dessert outdoors, one less thing to heat up the house with.
We've touched a bit on grilled fruit before, with mixed results, but this one works well and is easy to do. Its a good way to get your kids acquainted with grilling and the payoff is a healthy dessert. Nice.
Grilled Pineapple How To
At its simplest, we take pineapple, slice it up, and place it on an oiled hot grill and keep our eyes on it. Half inch pieces work well for us, any thinner and they burn quickly and can be hard to lift up off the grill. Learn from my experience.
This grilled pineapple can be cooked on a gas or charcoal grill, or you can use the broiler in your oven. In the summer I'm all about keeping heat out of the house, so if we are already grilling some meat or vegetables, I automatically think about grilled fruit. One could also make this in the fireplace with a grate like the one we use in our fireplace cooking videos here.
Variations on grilled pineapple
There are a lot of recipes that say to put the pineapple in a marinade or glaze it with oil or sugar. I don't see the need for this, but go ahead and try it with honey or brown sugar. We drizzle some of our balsamic vinegar reduction on it (video here), and sprinkle on cinnamon or nutmeg. Chunky salt flakes are good too for that sweet - salt thing.
A few thoughts on cutting up pineapple here. You can add the skin and top to the compost pile, but it will take a while for the top of the thing to break down. Its kinda like a cactus or spiny aloe vera plant with thick leaves. One GF viewer suggested saving the skin and cuttings and put them in a juicer, had not hear of that one.
Let me know your thoughts below on how to make grilled pineapple.
Kria
You can do something similar with sweet potato. I like to season with olive oil, garlic powder and some old bay. I have had at least a half dozen people swear they don't like sweet potato try this and then are hooked.
Janis in Hawaii
Aloha, Eric,
I enjoyed the grilled pineapple video, but I have some suggestions.
First, when choosing a pineapple, smell the bottom. If it smells like sweet pineapple - it's ready. If it smells like pineapple wine, it's over ripe (and only good for making homemade pineapple wine - which I do by blending the fruit, straining, adding light brown sugar and yeast). If it smells like pesticide, don't buy it.
Second, try prepping it this way:
Twist off the top first.
Note: You can put it in water, and sprout it. It takes a while, but roots will come out. You can plant it in a pot, and keep it warm. As a sub-tropical bromiliad, it will fruit in a year or two (from the center of the plant). The pineapple is actually a flower. The fruit/ flower will break off easily when ripe (and mostly yellow). The remaining plant may make side plants, which can be gently removed and potted separately (or left on the plant, and it will slowly spread). If it fruits again, the successive fruits will be smaller.
Then, after the top is removed from the ripe pineapple, slice off the curved top and bottom of the fruit. I cut less off the ends than you did. Then, stand it up and slice off the outer skin layer, all the way around.
I don't like the tough eyes, so I cut them out by cutting in triangular shaped V cuts, in spirals. They grow in spirals on the fruit. It's a little more work, but worth it.
After the eyes are removed, stand the fruit on end again. Then cut straight down, from the outer edge of the core. Leave the core intact, don't cut it up.
Cut close to the core, and make 4 or 5 large wedges. Those wedges may be cut into smaller spears, or slices (like you did). These can be grilled (yummy!), eaten fresh, cut smaller and put in fruit salads or frozen.
Now, you've still got the core. Stand it on end, and shave it with a knife (until it gets to the super woody part), so that you get lots of thin strips. Mince these, with garlic, onion, oregano, cilantro, jalapeno, and a pinch of cumin seeds, and you've got pineapple salsa.
With the small round tough core cylinder, you can put it in a glass jug of water, with a few black tea bags, and make pineapple sun tea.
The ends and skin I put in the compost. The V cuts I make wine with (blended). The core shavings I make salsa, and the tough core flavors tea. The tops I replant, as long as it's a tasty pineapple.
Oh, if you do grow the tops, they are heavy feeders (like tomatoes) that like lots of water and good drainage. With plenty of fertilizer, you'll get a bigger fruit (eventually). You can also just put the tops in soil (a pot, so it can be moved to warmer places in your winter) and not sprout them, too.
Hope this helps! Thanks so much for your wonderful videos!
much aloha,
Janis