This post will share how to use the part of the pineapple that is so often tossed or composted and thus saves and makes terrific use of it to make a delicious, flavorful shrub. Read on to see how one magic step makes the core the best part of the shrub!
In case you are new to the shrub game, shrubs are a very simple type of preserve where fruit or vegetable are preserved in sugar and vinegar on your countertop. If you love the idea of saving a little fruit in a jar on your counter in under 10 minutes for use in cocktails, sparkling water, salad dressing, yogurt, and more,
Sign up for the How to Make Shrub Email Course here!
I have to say, I might be the proudest of this shrub recipe out of all of my shrub posts. I try to put forth a genuine and concerted effort to avoid waste in the kitchen. That’s a lot of conditional adjectives because it is darn difficult to do. I have been inspired by the Zero Waste Home blog because of its emphasis on cutting out expensive, wasteful practices in the home. This recipe is a great example of my effort being successful (rather than flop-full).
This little love affair I’ve had with creating shrubs based on old recipes, mixed with spirits I like, in simple combinations has spawned a project that I’m really proud of and very excited to share. I’ve created a course about how to create your own homemade cocktail mixers called Wildflower Mixology. If you’ve been following me for any length of time you know how much I love homemade, simple, farmer’s market fresh fare, and how much I love helping beginners start making more homemade for themselves.
Now that you’ve entered to be one of the lucky winners, let me tell you how to make this zero waste shrub. My kids eat a lot of pineapples. I cut up a lot of pineapples. After cutting up what felt like my thousandth pineapple, I decided to try the following and was thrilled with the result. I’m sure you will too.
I took the core of 2 pineapples and chopped them into about ½ an inch slices and put them in the bottom of a quart jar. 2 cores measured out to be 1 cup, but that will depend on your core, your slices, and how many pineapples you get to cut up on a weekly basis 🙂 I kept a core for a couple of days by itself cut up and waited till I had to cut another to make my next batch of pineapple core shrub.
With whatever quantity of core you end up with, cover with the same amount of white sugar. 1 cup of core gets covered with 1 cup of sugar. A quarter cup of core gets 1 quarter cup of sugar.
This step is key. You must let this mixture sit in the jar, covered, for 12-24 hours. The sugar pulls the pineapple juice and goodness out of the dense core and makes it available to be mixed with the apple cider vinegar.
Here’s youtube time-lapse video of sugar pulling the juice out of rhubarb. I’ve found pineapple core to be even more amazing but failed to record it for you yet. Check it out; it is amazing, I think.
Stir, shake, stir, shake. When the sugar is dissolved and it has been at least 12 hours, add 2 cups of good quality apple cider vinegar if you had 2 cups of pineapple to begin with, which is about 2 cores total.
Let sit on your counter for about a week.
Strain and decant into a clean jar. Store in the refrigerator.
Serve with sparkling water, with or without a shot of your favorite libation.
Pretty savvy, right Wildflowers? If you want to learn all I know about shrubs, sign up for my email course! I will send you the ratios, the how-to, and all the recipes so you can make these yummy syrups. Get started now!
Here’s a beautiful graphic that shows where shrubs originated (pirates for the win!), and some different flavors you can experiment with! Enjoy, Wildflowers!
Source: Fix.com Blog
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