pineapple with lemon balm & mint recipe

The other day at the supermarket Ada spotted the pineapples and asked if we could buy one please mama?
I’m not quite sure why it has been so long since I’ve purchased one?? Being a cold, ok…freezing country for most of the year there is no way they can be grown in New Zealand. So imported ones are available all year round. They make for such a nice change to the usual winter fruits we’ve been eating for months on end…Apples, oranges, pears and grapefruit are all nice, but enough is enough I say. Give me the taste of the tropics over them any day!

Simply prepared this dish can be whipped up in minutes, and adds just enough of a lift to the already deliciously sweet pineapple to make it just a tad bit posh. I usually flavour the sugar with just mint, but in a stroke of genius the other day I looked up out of the kitchen window, locked eyes on our huge overgrown lemon balm bush and thought right that’s that, you are going into the mix too.

The end result was this lovely fresh hit of mint with lemony sweet notes. If you don’t have lemon balm handy like I do, by all means use all mint. Or you could play around with adding a little lemon or lime zest to the mint and sugar.

You can eat the sugary pineapple straight away or leave it covered in the fridge for a few hours. The sugar will melt and you will be left with a lovely fragrant syrup. Enjoy as is, or with other fruits mixed in. A side of Greek yoghurt finishes it off. *sigh*

pineapple with lemon balm and mint recipe
This uses a whole pineapple, so you be the judge on how many or how little it feeds 🙂 If you have left over sugar mix, store in a jar in the fridge for a few days (although it will discolour). I use raw unrefined cane sugar, but any will do.

• 1 ripe juicy pineapple, peeled and roughly chopped
• 1 sprig (8-10 leaves) of fresh lemon balm
• 1 sprig (8-10 leaves) of fresh mint leaves
• 2 tablespoons raw sugar
• small mint, peppermint and lemon balm leaves, to serve, optional

To make the lemon balm/mint sugar, stack leaves up then tightly roll them as you would a spring roll. Thinly slice the leaves, then finely chop them, as fine as you can. Transfer to a mortar and pestle and add sugar, lightly crush to form a lovely, fragrant green sugar. Sprinkle onto chopped pineapple and either eat straight away, or leave for up to a few hours in the fridge, so that you’re left with a lovely fragrant syrup. Enjoy!