![]() Prickly pears are a good source of magnesium and potassium and also contain calcium, vitamin C, and sodium. Prickly pear has a flavor affinity for banana, honeydew melon, lemon, lime, orange, tequila, and watermelon. Prickly pear purée can be used as a filling for tarts and cakes or to make jam or juice.įlavor partners. The sieved flesh can be served in punches and cocktails or as a flavoring for sorbets and yogurts. Serve prickly pear whole, cubed, or thin sliced in fruit cups or salads or sprinkled with lemon or lime juice. You can combine this purée with white wine vinegar or cider vinegar to make a salad dressing. Simmer prickly pear slices with water and sugar for 15 minutes or until tender, blend, strain, and chill. Be sure to remove the seeds before cooking, otherwise they will harden during cooking.Ĭook. To remove the seeds, press the fruit through a sieve or food mill. You can remove these hairs by passing the fruit through an open flame. The prickly pear can have small stinging nearly invisible hairs. Remove the sharp spines with pliers, cut off ends of the pear, make a shallow slit in the skin down the length of the fruit and peel back both the inner and outer layers skin back from top to bottom with a sharp knife. Use care in preparing the prickly pear for cooking, a pair thick leather gloves is recommended. Firm prickly pears will ripen and soften at room temperature in a few days. ![]() ![]() Prickly pears can be refrigerated in a plastic bag for 2 to 3 days. The fruit will yield to gentle pressure when ripe. Choose small, smooth, unblemished, deep-colored prickly pears that are firm but not hard. The peak season for prickly pears is late summer through early winter, September to December in the northern hemisphere. They too are covered with prickly spines or hairs. Nopales are the leaves of the cactus pear which also can be eaten. The prickly pear’s skin is essentially the fruit’s rind and is covered with stiff spines that must be carefully removed. The color of the fruit and flesh is preceded by blossoms of the same color. The skin is thick and coarse and can vary in color from green to yellow to orange or pink or red, or a bit of all these. The prickly pear fruit is usually 2 to 4 inches long and egg or barrel shaped, about the size of a kiwi fruit or small guava. In Mexico, the prickly pear is known a “cactus candy.” The flesh can be puréed and added to yogurts, sorbets, or ice cream or used as a flavoring for drinks. The salmon or pink to magenta colored flesh of the prickly pear can be sliced or cubed and eaten raw once the fruit’s hard black seeds are removed. The pulp of the prickly pear is sweet and moist with an aroma and flavor similar to a combination of the tastiest tropical and subtropical fruits, strawberry, watermelon, honeydew melon, fig, and banana. The prickly pear is a cactus fruit that is actually a berry.
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