Malay Stewed Pineapple

Pajri Nenas

This dish (known in Malay as 'Pajri Nanas) is the perfect accompaniment to the Malay curry dish. You can probably think of it as a type of chutney. How chutneys work is to provide a fresh, light and tangy accompaniment against the heaviness of curries. So what you get is a perfect mouthful of savory goodness from the curry and a light, tangy sweetness of this dish. At home, we rarely cook chicken or prawn curry without this essential complimentary dish. What's more, it is almost a brainless effort to cook and adds so much to the meal.

Level: Easy

Time to cook: 20mins

Ingredients

1. Fresh pineapple, cored, sliced cross sectionally, then divided into 6 per slice

2. 1 fresno pepper (can be omitted if you don't like the dish spicy)

3. 1 cinnamon stick

4. 1 star anise

5. 1/2 sweet onion - sliced

6. 2 tbsp olive oil

7. Sugar and sugar to taste

Preparation

1. Heat pan, pour oil in the heated pan.

2. Put cinnamon and star anise in the pan. Let it cook for 1 min. The idea here is to let the fragrance of the cinnamon and star anise infuse in the oil.

3. Then throw the sliced sweet onion in the pan. Let it cook until the onion wilt.

4. Put the pineapples in the pan. 

5. Add water to the ingredients to almost cover the pineapples - as per above.  

6. Let the ingredients simmer until the pineapples cook. This may take as long as 15-20mins.

7. Add sugar if pineapples are not sweet enough. Remember this dish is meant to be a chutney, so it has to be sufficiently sweet.

8. You may want to remove the cinnamon and star anise after about 10mins of stewing to prevent overwhelming fragrance.

9. Add salt to taste.

10. Serve with a curry and rice or baguette. Enjoy the burst of flavor in each mouthful!

Copyrighted delimilli 2011