Cutting a Pineapple

When I was going to school in Hawaii, one of my favorite snacks was fresh pineapple! I went to a party once, and someone had cut up a pineapple in the most fantastic way and sprinkled Li hing mui powder on it. It was delicious!

I never learned how to cut up a pineapple that way until I met Jill. She is a fantastic cook (and came up with the Baked Tofu recipe I use). She cut the pineapple up in such a way to reduce the amount of waste! It was fantastic.

Next time you get a pineapple, try cutting it up this way! Happy eating!







With a sharp knife, start shaving off the top thick layer of skin on the pineapple. The idea here is to minimize the amount of sweet juicy flesh you cut away, so really go thin! As you cut, you should be able to see "the eyes" of the pineapple.

Once all of the first layer of pineapple skin is off, examine the pineapple. Hopefully, there are no brown or soft spots, indicating rot. If there is a bunch of rot, then you will have to throw the pineapple away! :( But, if there are a few brown spots just carve them out of the pineapple with the knife.

When looking at the pineapple, you should see all the eyes there. Now, those eyes are not very tasty at all, so you will need to remove them. If you look closely, you can see that the eyes of the pineapple line up diagonally cross the pineapple. In the picture to the right you can trace an imaginary diagonal line of eyes from the top right corner of the picture to the bottom left corner of the picture.

Select one of those diagonal lines with eyes on them. Take you knife and turn it so it creates a sharp angle. Make a small incision about a 1/4 of an inch on one side of one or two of the eyes. On the opposite side of the eye, make a similar 1/4 inch incision. Remove and discard that piece of pineapple flesh. The eye should be completely removed, with angled incision marks in the pineapple.








Your pineapple incision should look something like this:
















Here is a closeup of the incision:




















Continue the process of making small, shallow, diagonal cuts until all or most of the eyes of the pineapple have been removed. Keep the same angle throughout the pineapple. In the end you should get a pineapple which looks like a spiral staircase has been carved through it. It should be free of the tough outer skin and any eyes. It should look something like this:

Here is a closeup of those incision lines. As you can see, all the skin and eyes have been removed, leaving only the soft, sweet flesh with a minimum amount of waste! The diagonal lines combine and form a spiral. 

Cut off the top tall grassy part of the pineapple. Take your knife and position it in the center of the flat top the pineapple. Cut down with a strong powerful stroke, cutting the pineapple in half, lengthwise. You should now have two halves of one pineapple.

The next step is to remove and discard the core of the pineapple. It is hard and somewhat bitter and you don't really want to eat it or cook with it. Flip one of the cut halves, so that the flat part is facing you. The core will be in the center. With a sharp knife, make a deep angled incision across the length of the pineapple on both sides and remove the core. I have been trying to think of uses for the core. Currently, I cut the core into chunks and I am keeping them in a jar with vodka to see if I can make pineapple infused Vodka.

Take the cut pineapple half and cut it into slices. Eat immediately or store in your refrigerator.

If you have fresh strawberries and raspberries, make a berry sauce and serve it with the pineapple for a delicious dessert. I like to sprinkle mine with Li Hing Mui (mentioned above) or chili pepper and salt! Delicious!

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