Get them when they are bright purple and look like rat food, just before starting to wrinkle. Remove the spines. Place the pears in a plastic colander five or six at a time under cold water. Swirl the pears around for about three or four minutes not bruising them. Doing this washes all the fine blond hairs away, now you can handle them prickly free. Skin the pears. It takes a little practice to know how much to slice off. Generally, you want to take off the skin without getting at the seed-filled center.
Cut lengthwise along the pear's top-bottom centerline just through the skin. Using that slit, use the knife to lever the skin and peel it off of the rest of the pear. Cut the pear into slices, or stick onto a fork or skewer and serve.
The flesh of the prickly pear can be used to make jam , jelly , sorbet , wine, and "cactus candy. Some people eat the seeds in soup or dry them to be ground into flour. All prickly pears cacti in the genus opuntia are edible, though you may find that many varieties are not as tasty, have more spines or seeds than the prickly pears and cactus pads you can find in stores. Not Helpful 3 Helpful All prickly pear varieties are edible, saguaro cactus fruit is edible though not easy to come by , organ pipe cactus and barrel cactus fruit is edible, as is dragon fruit, which grows on a cactus.
There are several other types of cactus which are eaten throughout the world, but these are some of the most common. Yes, both the pads and fruit can be eaten raw, just be sure to carefully remove the spines before eating if they haven't been removed.
Not Helpful 1 Helpful Soak your hands in hot water first. Then use a credit card to flick them off. Not Helpful 16 Helpful Each part has a lot of potassium, calcium and most importantly protein. Not Helpful 24 Helpful Check out the helpful tips in this article about growing prickly pears on wikiHow.
Not Helpful 8 Helpful Not Helpful 25 Helpful Use leather gloves and a pair of kitchen tongs. Pick the fruits that are red all the way or nearly to the base of the fruit. Gently grab the fruit and gently twist to remove if it's ripe, it will easily come off.
Not Helpful 13 Helpful It's best to eat them when they are bright purple or else they can be very bitter. Not Helpful 10 Helpful Not Helpful 0 Helpful Include your email address to get a message when this question is answered. The flavor of prickly pears has been compared to kiwi , but not as acidic. Helpful 2 Not Helpful 1. If you get the fine spines stuck in your skin, don't bother with tweezers. Instead put a thin layer of Elmer's glue over the spines. Let the glue dry until there is a solid "skin" on your hand, then peel it off.
The spines will peel off painlessly with the glue. The glochids actually are barbed and will work into your skin if you are not careful. If you don't have Elmer's glue handy, duct tape or strong tack masking tape can remove the glochids. Helpful 3 Not Helpful 0. The cooked pads have a flavor comparable to green beans. Red and green cactus pears are the most common in the U.
Red cactus fruit or tunas rojas , when ripe, should be a deep red color, with little or no green on the skin. The color green can range from very light green to medium green, getting slightly lighter in color as they ripen, and the fruit inside is white or very pale green. When they start to over-ripen and decay, sometimes the skin turns a bit yellow or palid.
When you buy cactus fruit at the grocery store, most of the time the spines have already been cleaned off and the fruit is safe to touch with your hands.
However, sometimes there are very small spines that are difficult to see with the naked eye, so I suggest that you use tongs or a plastic bag to handle them in the store rather than your bare hands. If you get home and find that your cactus fruits still have small spines, use rubber gloves to protect your hands and a kitchen tool such as a potato brush to gently scrub them under running water and remove the spines.
Cactus fruit typically grows wild, and some people plant them in home gardens. Prickly pears are usually eaten fresh, as shown in the video here with the skin removed and cut into chunks or slices just like any other fresh fruit.
The wide, flat cactus pads "nopales" are used in many Mexican main dishes such as salads, eggs and as a filling for other dishes. The cactus fruit, sometimes called a "Prickly Pears" are very sweet and can be eaten raw, right off of the plant. Depending on the level of ripeness, they can range from slightly sweet to syrupy sweet. Cactus fruit grows on the edges of the flat pads of the cactus, and are pear-shaped. They can range in color from green less sweet to red very sweet and orange shades in between.
The little spots you see on them are not thorns, but they are covered in glochids which are like little hair-like splinters that can stick into your skin and are very painful and very hard to see. When picking a prickly pear cactus fruit, you must protect your hands. You can use thick gloves or an old towel folded into a couple of layers. Six paper towels stacked together should also work just fine.
Use the gloves or towels to grip the fruit, and gently twist it. The greener fruits will require a firmer grip and more twisting, and the riper fruits will pop right off with very little effort. Place the fruits into a bowl or basket. Do not touch the fruit with your bare hands.
First, you will need to get the glochids off so that you can handle the fruit. Trust me, you don't want to touch them. There are a few ways to get the fruits off the cactus. You could wear thick gardening gloves, but the problem with that is that your gloves will then be covered with insidious hair-thorns that will attack you next time you touch them. I opt to use kitchen tongs that keep me at a safe distance and can be washed clean without ever touching my skin.
Grab a prickly pear in the tongs and gently twist it off the cactus. Ripe ones are more red and will easily release from the tree. I gather a bunch of fruits in a large bowl and run the whole thing under water before the next step. Using the tongs, place a prickly pear on your cutting board and cut off each end with a sharp knife.
Be careful to use the tongs or fork the whole time - never touch the skin of a prickly pear! Using a fork to hold the fruit steady, gently peel the skin away from the fruit with the knife. If the fruit is really ripe, the skin will easily fall away with just some gentle nudging. Once the skin is peeled from both sides, you can safely grasp the fruit to pull it off the bottom without touching the skin.
Place the fruit on a clean plate. Use your fork to move the discarded skin aside. Repeat with all your fruits. Another reminder to not touch the skin. You probably think you're home free now, right? Our demonic cactus fruits have another surprise in store to prevent you from enjoying their deliciousness. Packed within the fruit are zillions of hard little seeds. You can't just eat around them - it's like trying to suck through a mouth full of gravel.
You'll have to separate the seeds from the pulp. There are a few ways to do this. The best way I've found is to use a simple food mill.
This handy, old fashioned, mechanical device isn't used much nowadays, except by people who make their own baby food. So, if you've had a baby, or if you're just into antiquated equipment, dig out your food mill and put it to good use.
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