Make Prickly Pear Juice
The prickly pear cactus has wide distribution throughout the United States, and its use as a food product is becoming more popular. The cactus pads and the fruit have excellent nutritional value, and both are good for controlling blood sugar. This article talks about use the fruits to make juice that can be used to flavor foods, marinate meat for the grill and used as a mix for drinks.
Instructions
1. The fruits ripen in the late summer into early fall, depending on where you live. In the hot desert southwest, mid-August is when people start picking the fruits. They are ripe when they are bright red or purple, depending on the variety. Locate a source of prickly pear fruit near you to pick yourself. It might be as close as your backyard, or it might be on a distant mountain.
2. Put on your leather gloves, and use tongs to take the fruits off the cactus pads. Be careful. All prickly pear cacti have long needles, and the fruits have little fuzzy needles on them that look harmless, but are just as painful to get in your skin as the long spines are.
3. Grab the fruit gently using the tongs. The fruits are surprisingly full of water and are easy to bruise, causing the skin to break. Put the fruit in the pail. Harvest enough to make as much juice as you want. Since they are a seasonal fruit, you might want to pick more than you think you'll use immediately and put some in the freezer for using throughout the year.
4. Process the fruit as quickly as you can after picking to ensure that you get the most flavor and nutrition from it. If you can't do it that day, refrigerate it overnight.
5. Rinse off the fruit. The easiest way to get rid of those nasty stickers and fuzz is to burn them off. Either use a gas stove or some kind of gas burner and hold them over flame and burn them off. Lacking a direct flame, you can put them on your barbecue with hot coals underneath to get rid of the stickers. Roll them around so that they are all gone from the sides and the top.
6. Drop the cleaned fruits into a pot and add about one to two cups of water to get them cooking. Small batches require less water. Cover the pan and turn on the heat to medium low and wait until the fruits are easily pierced with a fork. This takes about half an hour.
7. When they are tender, take the potato masher and try to force as much juice out of the cooked fruits as you can.
8. Put the cheese cloth into a colander and dump the prickly pear mash into it over a large bowl. Let the fruit drain until the pulp is cool enough to handle with your hands. Don the latex gloves and start squeezing the remaining juice from the pulp.
9. At this point, your juice is ready for consuming or freezing. Try putting the extra juice in jars for the freezer or heavy plastic bags. If you want to use it right away, put it in a pitcher and chill it in the refrigerator. Depending on your application, you can add a little sugar to bring the flavor out and sweeten it up a little.
Tags: prickly pear, burn them, cactus pads, Make Prickly, Make Prickly Pear