Adventures in Pineapple

I had a can of pineapple chunks in my pantry for a while, that just decided to "speak" to me this week.


My first use of half the can was with some sweet potato. I thought of these two together from a sweet potato and pineapple casserole that I made once as a vegetarian side dish option for a holiday party. Wanting that same flavor profile, without the use of the oven was my basic idea. I thought the use of a bit of butter and some caramelization in a pan would make for a very nice side dish for dinner. I partially cooked the sweet potato in the microwave- leaving it whole and just poking it a couple times to let the steam out. It was important not to cook it too much, or it would not slice into the pieces I wanted for the dish. After melting some butter in a frying pan, I added the pieces of potato and pineapple chunks, with a bit of their juice. Once one side was nice and browned, I flipped each piece over to get the same effect on the other side.
The result looked very nice, but I felt there was something a little lacking. The pineapple had gotten quite concentrated in flavor with the process and was almost too sour. When eating with the sweet, creaminess of a piece of potato in the same bite, it worked well. Perhaps if it had a little bit of sauce or the pieces were smaller and therefore you would most likely eat small pieces of both in each bite. It's a little bit of a work in progress. Fresh pineapple, as opposed to canned, may also change things.





My second adventure with the other half of the pineapple can involved an asian-influenced chicken with pineapple dish. This time I started with some large bite-sized pieces of chicken and dredged them in some flour before cooking them in butter and olive oil. I wanted just a little bit of a crispy, brown coating to them. When they were cooked through, I removed them from the pan and created a pineapple sauce. I dumped the rest of the pineapple chunks and their juice in the pan, plus the juice and pulp from one orange, and a bit of teriyaki marinade I had in the fridge. I let it reduce a bit and thicken slightly, but wanted more than just a juicy sauce- I wanted it to really coat the chicken, so I added a little bit of a cornstarch slurry (cornstarch and water) while it was simmering to tighten it up. When it was at the consistency I wanted, I added the chicken into the pan and coated it with the sauce. Served with rice, it was very tasty. Erik said it may have been one of my best chicken concoctions to date (but he's a big fan of this type of thing).