The Power of Pineapple

I was going to save this a surprise, but it turns out I am spilling the beans now…  March will be an entire month devoted to three things: kale, quinoa and chicken, and in preparation I have been cooking with all three so I am ready.  Last week I cooked up some chicken for a few different dishes, including a chicken salad made with pineapple-yum! Unfortunately it was a disaster, and I don’t mean a normal too much salt disaster, but a gross, inedible, I had to throw it out kind of disaster. Throwing food out infuriates me, so I will tell you the sad story of my chicken salad disaster and hope it will save you from making the same mistake.

 
I blame the pineapple! Have you ever heard the phrase ‘a poor craftsman (or woman) always blames his tools’?  Though I’m not sure if a pineapple can be considered a tool, it is an ingredient, and it’s my party so I’ll  blame who I want to.  I made my chicken salad with a nice curry dressing, half sour cream, half mayonnaise, curry powder, a touch of sugar, scallions and chopped fresh pineapple.  It tasted quite good, and looked beautiful.  I planned on photographing it on a roll the next day in the daylight, and then eating it for lunch!  

 What I forgot is that pineapple has bromelian enzymes which are the enemy of proteins the world over. Years ago I made a pineapple marinade for some fish, and within an hour the fish had pretty much disintegrated, which is just what happened to the chicken in my chicken salad.  Overnight those enzymes did their work on my chicken and by the next morning it was mush.  Given my previous fish experience you’d think I would know better.  

Pineapple is a powerful force, that must be respected. Fresh pineapple will keep Jell-O from setting, and the bromeleian enzyme is the main ingredient in meat tenderizer. I will make that chicken salad again, and it will work because I will grill the pineapple and neutralize those pesky enzymes.  This is why canned pineapple can be used in Jell-O molds (do people still make those?) and in protein salads.

 I can manage to keep a lot of information about food in my head, but sometimes I just forget some critical piece. I once got a teabag with a great saying  on the paper tag, which I always remember when I screw up (you know, every fifteen minutes or so) it goes,”Even monkeys fall out of trees”.  We all have our disasters from time to time, and they don’t make us bad cooks, or bad drivers, or bad parents, they make us monkeys!