Don’t fret if you picked a less-than-ripe pineapple: a few minutes on the grill will bring out the juiciness and concentrate the sweetness of the fruit (honey can help too if needed). Another bonus: the heat will eliminate any prickly-tongue feeling that raw pineapples can cause.
Ingredients
- Whole pineapple
- Olive or other cooking oil, for brushing
- Optional: 2-4 tablespoons honey
Preparation
- Using a cutting board and sharp knife, slice ends off pineapple. Stand pineapple on cut end and carefully cut off strips of peel, as thin as you can manage (the flesh near the peel is sweetest). When pineapple is fully peeled, lay it down on its side. Note that the brown eyes of the pineapple follow a diagonal pattern. To remove the eyes while keeping as much of the sweet flesh as possible, cut V-shaped trenches, following the diagonal lines of the pineapple eyes, until they are all removed (see pictures).
- Stand trimmed pineapple on end and slice in half vertically. Slice each end lengthwise again, making a total of four big wedges.
- Stand each wedge vertically and slice down to remove the hard center core of the pineapple. If you want smaller wedges for serving, cut each quarter-wedge lengthwise into half again before grilling, giving you a total of eight wedges.
- Heat grill to medium-high heat. Brush pineapple wedges with oil and cook for a few minutes on each side, until pineapple is well heated and lightly charred (flesh will turn from pale yellow to more golden).
- Drizzle warm pineapple with honey if is still too tart for your liking. Serve wedges whole or sliced.
Notes
- A ripe pineapple should smell sweet at the stem end and its flesh should give slightly when you squeeze it. Green leaves are a good indicator of freshness. And a juicy pineapple will feel heavy for its size. I like to see some yellow color outside, but experts say a green pineapple isn’t necessarily unripe. Careful of a pineapple that is too yellow – if it smells funky, it’s unappetizingly overripe.
- If you don’t have honey, mix a couple tablespoons of brown sugar with the oil before your brush the pineapple wedges.
- You can also cut fat rings of the trimmed pineapple instead of wedges. It’s just a little more work to cut out the core of each round.
Here’s a link back to the post and pictures.
