DRIPPING FOOD: PURPLE PAIN OR NOTES ON OUR FIRST PRICKLY PEAR "TUNA" HARVEST
Earlier this year, we posted a Drip Pic of the Week featuring the lovely yellow flowers of the prickly pear. Those yellow flowers are now a brilliant magenta-hued cactus fruit called "tuna" (a term de Espanol) which can be eaten raw, but are more commonly used to make jellies or syrups. Prickly pear on our property is laden with tunas this year and we were determined to continue our "wild food" adventure, having survived our first agarita harvest back in May. As it turns out, a brush with agarita leaves feels something akin to being licked by a kitten compared to an even fleeting encounter with prickly pear glochids.
We were well aware of the potential pain of glochids, the tiny barbed spines that cover the skin of the tuna and thought we were clever enough to defend ourselves. We slipped on thick work gloves and barreled over to the prickly pear patch. We were harvesting tuna hither and thither. What's so hard about this? No pain! All gain!
Wrong.
While the gloves did protect us from the glochids while picking, what we did not factor in is what would happen when we removed our gloves. We didn't think about stow-away glochids clinging to every inch of our gloves which we took off back in the house and, long story short, glochid clean-up on aisle pain.
But not to be defeated, we licked our wounds (ouch! glochid on tongue! glochid on tongue!) and regrouped. For our next tuna harvest foray, we took our cues from a food blogger and tuna wrangler and used long metal tongs. Grasping the tuna with the tongs, we twisted, and off popped the tuna which we then put into a heavy brown paper bag. Back inside the house, we carefully poured our tuna bounty into a large colander and rinsed. Next, to make sure all the dirt and any extraneous outdoor mystery substance was removed, we stabbed each tuna with a fork and used a toothbrush to scrub clean (not to remove the glochids, just clean). The brown bag and toothbrush will be saved and used again for our remaining tuna harvests this year, but then they will be trashed. This shall be a glochid-free zone.
Once clean, we cut the tunas in half (not using a wood cutting board because the tuna wrangler advised that glochids can cling to wood cutting boards). The halved tunas then went into a stockpot and onto the stove and medium-low heat. Once they began to warm up, juices released and the tunas began to soften and collapse. Using a metal spoon, we stirred and mashed (a potato masher would have been better had we had one) and just kept working the hot tunas until all the liquid was released. Then, for the first round of liquid separation, we poured all into a colander over a pot. After this first straining, we then lined a fine sieve with several layers of cheesecloth and strained again (we actually did this a couple of times, we wanted no risk of glochid escapees). At the end of the straining, cheesecloth was tossed and all used bowls and sieves carefully rinsed and washed. Satisfied in our glochid clean-up, we were able to relax and admire the resulting glorious magenta liquid.
From here, the next steps are up to you. At this point, many make jelly, but we decided to make a syrup. Most recipes call for equal parts prickly pear juice and sugar plus a bit of lemon juice to make a syrup, but we had only honey in the house, so for 2 cups of prickly pear juice we added about 1.5 cups of honey and heated on the stove, brought to a boil, and reduced until thickened just a bit. So far, we've used our prickly pear syrup in our usual honey balsamic vinaigrette (olive oil whisked with balsamic, honey, chopped shallots if we have them, and a bit of dijon), substituting the prickly pear syrup for plain honey — truly delicious. Also, we livened up our sparkling Italian mineral water with a bit of the syrup which made a lightly sweet and refreshing hot summer drink that was also a lovely color. All in all, our prickly pear harvest turned out to be sweet and delicious purple pain.
Italian sparkling mineral water with homemade prickly pear syrup.
We were well aware of the potential pain of glochids, the tiny barbed spines that cover the skin of the tuna and thought we were clever enough to defend ourselves. We slipped on thick work gloves and barreled over to the prickly pear patch. We were harvesting tuna hither and thither. What's so hard about this? No pain! All gain!
Wrong.
While the gloves did protect us from the glochids while picking, what we did not factor in is what would happen when we removed our gloves. We didn't think about stow-away glochids clinging to every inch of our gloves which we took off back in the house and, long story short, glochid clean-up on aisle pain.
But not to be defeated, we licked our wounds (ouch! glochid on tongue! glochid on tongue!) and regrouped. For our next tuna harvest foray, we took our cues from a food blogger and tuna wrangler and used long metal tongs. Grasping the tuna with the tongs, we twisted, and off popped the tuna which we then put into a heavy brown paper bag. Back inside the house, we carefully poured our tuna bounty into a large colander and rinsed. Next, to make sure all the dirt and any extraneous outdoor mystery substance was removed, we stabbed each tuna with a fork and used a toothbrush to scrub clean (not to remove the glochids, just clean). The brown bag and toothbrush will be saved and used again for our remaining tuna harvests this year, but then they will be trashed. This shall be a glochid-free zone.
Once clean, we cut the tunas in half (not using a wood cutting board because the tuna wrangler advised that glochids can cling to wood cutting boards). The halved tunas then went into a stockpot and onto the stove and medium-low heat. Once they began to warm up, juices released and the tunas began to soften and collapse. Using a metal spoon, we stirred and mashed (a potato masher would have been better had we had one) and just kept working the hot tunas until all the liquid was released. Then, for the first round of liquid separation, we poured all into a colander over a pot. After this first straining, we then lined a fine sieve with several layers of cheesecloth and strained again (we actually did this a couple of times, we wanted no risk of glochid escapees). At the end of the straining, cheesecloth was tossed and all used bowls and sieves carefully rinsed and washed. Satisfied in our glochid clean-up, we were able to relax and admire the resulting glorious magenta liquid.
From here, the next steps are up to you. At this point, many make jelly, but we decided to make a syrup. Most recipes call for equal parts prickly pear juice and sugar plus a bit of lemon juice to make a syrup, but we had only honey in the house, so for 2 cups of prickly pear juice we added about 1.5 cups of honey and heated on the stove, brought to a boil, and reduced until thickened just a bit. So far, we've used our prickly pear syrup in our usual honey balsamic vinaigrette (olive oil whisked with balsamic, honey, chopped shallots if we have them, and a bit of dijon), substituting the prickly pear syrup for plain honey — truly delicious. Also, we livened up our sparkling Italian mineral water with a bit of the syrup which made a lightly sweet and refreshing hot summer drink that was also a lovely color. All in all, our prickly pear harvest turned out to be sweet and delicious purple pain.
Italian sparkling mineral water with homemade prickly pear syrup.
Posted by DSBabble.com at Thursday, August 05, 2010 5:01 PM 
Categories: dripping food
Tags: prickly pear syrup prickly pear harvest prickly pear vinaigrette
Categories: dripping food
Tags: prickly pear syrup prickly pear harvest prickly pear vinaigrette
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