Preparing Prickly Pear & Tuna, Fruit of the Cactus

[gfron1]

The tuna have started changing in the past week. In a very short span of time they have gone from green to light purple - some a very deep purple (especially the small ones). So it was time to continue playing around.

I picked a small deep red tuna (for perspective, this is about 1 inch long):

It had already lost most of its stickers, so I just had a little clean-up to do. Then I lopped off the top and bottom, and with my sharpest knife, peeled the outer flesh - leaving as much inner flesh as possible. I then split it lengthwise for the picture:

You'll notice the red in the flesh. The seeds are very hard, and at this point seem inedible (someone earlier mentioned that you eat them, but maybe that will come later). I then de-seeded which was the hardest part since those suckers wanted to hang on for dear life:

Then I popped it in my mouth praying that I didn't miss any stickers. It was tasty. Not slimy at all. It reminded me of a cantaloupe rind - the part where the sweet flesh transitions to hard bitter rind. I found it pleasant, and will wait and see how the taste evolves. I'm still convinced that these have uses beyond jelly and drink. I think salt might interact well at this stage of development, especially a flavorful smoked salt or I have some Murray River salt that might be nice.

I'll continue pulling a tuna each week for the fun of it. I also need to pull a big one to see how the consumable mass increases...meaning is it flesh or seeds in there?

[hummingbirdkiss]

tuna's make great margaritas! I pick them all the time when I travel tot he SW during the season. When I was in my early 20's we lived in Southern AZ and I actually made jelly in a hotel kitchen out of them!

I love eating them fresh in fact right now our Mercado is full of them big fat sweet ones!

I pick them with tongs and just dip them in boiling water for a second or two and no prickles left

they should just fall of easily and be really crimson inside with lots of juice

[gfron1]

Based on your experience, how do you determine the optimal picking/eating stage?

[hummingbirdkiss]

Based on your experience, how do you determine the optimal picking/eating stage?

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when they are just barely hanging on to the pad and you can just pop them off easily with a pair of tongs then you slice through them and they should as I mentioned be full of bright red juice ..crimson as I mentioned it is so pretty for drinks especially I think but again I love just eating them

the spines disssolved completely with a quick boiling water bath I just dump my entire score in a pot of boiled water then fish them all out completely spine free

yours look pretty "green" yet

sparrow as far as the pads go I like the baby ones for Nopalitos l..same thing I pick the pads with tongs and then dip them in boiling water or wear heavy gloves and scrap against the grain with a knife ... then slice them up and fry them and eat them with eggs..some species can be very bitter!!! so taste a little first ...

I have not read through this entire thread so I am not sure if this advice is repetitive

edited to stand corrected

I just talked to my sister in Santa fe and she says some tuna's are indeed green inside and rec you taste them to see if they are ripe they should be sweet and melony! I myself have only picked. bought and eaten the crimson ones

Edited August 22, 2007 by hummingbirdkiss (log)

[andiesenji]

Try making a small batch of sweet pickles - the semi-candied type similar to sweet pickled watermelon rind. The tuna I get are pink and purple almost all the way through, although occasionally I do get some that are sort of striped on the inside, purple and green.

Use a melon baller to remove the seeds.

[rancho_gordo]

gfron1, are the paddles on your cactus really round and thin, even when a bit older? I have one like that and it's prettier but the tunas aren't as tasty as on my more traditional one.

This is the inside of one of mine:

The stones run throughout, not just in the center. When it's ripe, all I can say is it looks like a swollen sexual member, if you know what I mean and you just know it's time.

I had some ripen this spring but they were kind of watery. The late fall harvest is dense and sweet.

[gfron1]

Okay...now they're ripe! I enjoyed this one for breakfast. And yes RG, my cactus are mostly round and flat, although we have a few that look like yours that have been imported in with the Californians.

[gfron1]

Here is my recent booty:

I processed them by slicing off the top. The bottom was already opened from me pulling them from the cactus. I then ran them under warm water to get rid of loose spines. And finally, I used a paring knife and simply peeled the skin and remaining spines away. Here they are sitting in iced water waiting for me to do something with them.

[andiesenji]

Absolutely beautiful!

[gfron1]

Isn't it an amazing color? I've been thinking maybe I do something that features the color - I like it more than beets.

[gfron1]

Short update. I used my juicer and extracted 3 quarts of liquid from this batch. It was slimy as reported above. This morning I boiled it for 90 minutes to try and concentrate the flavor. The liquid became more slimy - not just slimy but stringy, slimy (think egg white). I skimmed a bit, thinking the slime would break down with the heat, but it didn't. So now I'm wondering if this can't act as some type of gelling agent.

My plan with this batch is to freeze some ice cubes for future margheritas and other drinks, and to make syrup that I can incorporate into baked goods - probably cheesecake this weekend.

I'll also be going out to get some smaller ones to be used for various savory appetizers.

[andiesenji]

I haven't noticed that effect, however I never used a juicer. I simply cooked the pulp and put it through a food mill, which produced a less chunky pulp, then cooked it down over low heat for a long time until thickened. I have used both a preserving kettle and a crockpot.

[nerdy]

recent info i discovered about the cactus & their fruit.... when the spanish came to the new world they really were into them, but not so much for the culinary purposes as for the tiny scale insects that live on their surface yeilding a bright red dye called cochineal. it colors one of my favorite beverages campari. it flourished in the mediteranian climate and was turned into a liqour on the isle of malta, called bajtra. havnt tried it yet but im lookin to do so as soon as possible. i think both the fruit and the leaf of the cactus are extremely versitile, lending themselves to all sorts of sweet and savory applications. el bulli 03-04 has some info on the preperation of nopales to yeild them slimeless. most places in my area that serve them skip the prosess, i still like em slimy, but when processed the proper way the results are really nice.

[gfron1]

Two plays on the tuna.

First, tuna stuffed with aged cheddar and wrapped in pancetta. I baked this for 10 minutes, cooled a bit to let the pancetta set up, and then popped it in my mouth. I de-seeded it but pushing a chop stick into the center and feeling for the seeds, as I pushed them out the other end. It worked.

Then we used some of my juice concentrate, added a bit of orange juice and served it with our fillet mignon.

[Kouign Aman]

That appetizer needs a name. Something playing off 'Angels on Horseback' perhaps. Spanish/American/British/Italian. How very 'fusion' of you .

Was it delicious? Would you make it again? Same cheese? Different? Aged gouda? Its been a while since I've tasted prickly pear fruit.

[gfron1]

Well it has a name...the gfron1 (oh wait, that's what I call all of my dishes).

It was really good. We debated about the cheese. I really wanted blue cheese and still think that would be a better choice. Everyone else like the more subtle but biting cheddar because it allowed the tuna to be highlighted. I think a goat would be interesting too. I also want to find a way to pan fry it instead of oven broiling - I think it would net a better texture.

I made these to be bite sized, but I could have just as easily picked a larger tuna, prepared it the same way, stuffed it with goat and topped it with toasted pinon. Its a definite make-again.

[andiesenji]

I like Manchego with the tuna. A nice combination is tuna with fresh figs, especially the brown turkey figs. (I just bought a basket of the latter to make burnt fig jam.)

[Kouign Aman]

Wenselydale is a nice bright dry cheese - sounds like it might work also.

[Nancy in Pátzcuaro]

The Hotel Virrey de Mendoza in Morelia--a venerable hotel on the main plaza--has wonderful breakfasts. However the best thing on the menu is jugo verde--pineapple, celery and nopal. No slime, possibly because the interaction of pineapple and nopal neutralizes the slime. I also like nopalitos in scrambled eggs. I haven't tried the nopalitos in a jar--would the canning process destroy the flavor? I guess I'll just have to get some and try it.

N.

[gfron1]

Prickly Pear Tuna Sake

[Rebel Rose]

These photos are from my last prickly pear harvest.  I just soaked them overnight, then boiled them up and strained off the juice. Rather than make quarts of simple syrup, I just froze the juice so I would have more options. I used it for cocktails, lemonade, salad vinaigrette, a reduction sauce to accompany duck breast, and a tangy marbling in mandarin orange cheesecake. 

 

The thing I love most about these particular tunas is that the juice has a faint whiff of tobacco and herbs, which saves it from being blandly fruity and makes it a sophisticated addition to adult fizzy beverages. 

[Smithy]

I had quite forgotten this topic, @Rebel Rose.  Thanks for bringing it back up.  I happen to be in southwestern USA desert at present, and am likely to have opportunities to draw inspiration here.