Pineapple
Jeff StultsFor 60 years, The Culinary Institute of America has been setting the standard for excellence in professional culinary education. In this video series, experienced chefs and educators show you how to tackle essential cooking techniques.

Watch this video to learn how to pick, peel, cut and prepare a pineapple for presentation.

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Video Transcript

I'm Chef Brannon Soileau from the Culinary Institute of America, and I'm going to show you this kitchen basic: how to work with a pineapple.

The first thing you want to think about when you go to the pineapple stand is: you want to make sure you give it a good smell. Make sure it smells fresh; make sure it smells like Hawaii. Go to the bottom or the base of the core. You'll notice where it was picked, if it's old, it may have some fungus or maybe some mold in this area down here; you want to make sure that area is fairly nice and dry - no mold. Another great indication is if you can grab the leaves or fronds from the top, and it's hard for you to pull them out. If they just come out as soon as you tug, that's an old pineapple; it's been sitting around for a while.

When you work with an intimidating piece of fruit like this, you want to make sure you get it stable, so it's not wobbling all around on you, so you're not cutting yourself. I'm going to cut a minimal amount off that base, and I'm going to cut a minimal amount off the top. Now we have a piece of fruit that is stable; it's not dangerous any more, it's manageable.

You want a knife that's at least going to go across the distance of the pineapple. You don't want to use a very small knife. I'm going to use a sawing motion down to the bottom of the pineapple. When you peel any round fruit - a pineapple, honeydew, cantaloupe - it's in this way. Cut the ends off to stabilize it, and then you're going to peel it with the sawing motion from top to bottom. I size it up; I stabilize it on top with my finger about a quarter of the way in, and I slice it down. Again, another turn, so that I'm always going against the rind of the pineapple. One more time. Don't get worried if you see some of the spots left on it. You can always go back and hone them in, just take them off lightly - again with that sawing motion.

We have a pineapple that's been peeled: it's still sturdy, it's not wobbling around on us. I'm going to go ahead and cut it down the center. Open it up, and then I'm going to use a v-cut to remove that core. Put the knife at a slight angle off to the side, and make a cut down through the center. Flip it around and cut at the same angle again, so that I'm cutting into that core, and you create a little V in the pineapple where we'll slide out that tough fibrous core.

Turn the pineapple back over. If I wanted to present my fruit on a tray or platter, I might cut this piece down the center the long way, and then create my slices in this manner . I'm just making vertical slices across that plane of pineapple that I cut in half. And now if you had a plate or platter, you can take those sliced pineapples and just lean on them and force them like a deck of cards, and you can create some pretty interesting presentations with your pineapple. If I just wanted some diced fruit, I'd take this same piece and I'd probably cut them in half. I'd get a much better product now than I'd ever have by buying the one that's pre-processed.

For more great tips log on to kitchendaily.com! Bon appetit. Peace!