You can never go wrong with a fresh pineapple whether you plan to slice and serve, make a tropical fruit salad, bake a pineapple upside down cake, mix tropical drinks, or in this case, dice it nice and small and create salsa.
Ordinarily when I buy pineapple I buy a whole one and cut it up myself when I get home; I do this especially if I'm not going to use it for a day or two since it keeps better. But this time I picked up an already peeled and cored one.
I was a little skeptical at first worrying that it had been sitting there for hours or that it was going to be too ripe. I was pleasantly surprised however that the one I put in the grocery cart was ripe and sweet, but not mushy (I can't stand mushy fruit!). The other thing that was a pleasant surprise was that not only was the fruit marked with it's price, it also had a clearly visible notation as to what time it had been prepared. It was helpful to know that the pineapple had only been sitting in the plastic bag and "on ice" for 2 hours; not bad.
Thus, the 2 hours ago cored pineapple became the basis for a fresh, sweet and tangy salsa based on one I had eaten years and years ago at a long gone restaurant in Michigan. The finished product was pretty close to what I remember.
What can I say, the combination of sweet pineapple and the bold spiciness of jalepeno peppers excite my taste buds and compliment any other spicy dish with a cool freshness that is sure to please.
Enjoy!
1 fresh pineapple, cored and cut into tidbit size pieces, large dice
1 jalepeno pepper, seeds removed from one piece, dice finely
1/2 red onion, small dice
cilantro
2 T honey
1 lime, juice
salt and pepper, to taste
Dice pineapple, pepper and red onion and place into a dish.
Chop cilantro and add to fruit.
A note about seeding jalepeno peppers. When seeding more than one jalepenos, I suggest caution. It doesn't take much for the potent capsaicin to get onto your fingers. If you lick your fingers or touch your eyes you're likely to get 'burned' by the oils.
When seeding a jalepeno I generally use a spoon to scrape out all of the seeds and the membrane. It seems that this method does better than even using my knife...it seems to get a closer scraping. Plus, if I'm going to scrape more than 2 or 3 and then dice them, I hold on to the pepper with a piece of plastic wrap or a plastic bag (as a substitute to a rubber glove) to guard my fingers.
A beautiful combination of colors -- fresh, tropical.
Add honey and the juice of 1 lime to the bowl.
Stir. Salt and pepper lightly.
Refrigerate to blend flavors.
Serve.
