How To Remove Spines From Prickly Pear Fruit?
Removing the spines from a prickly pear fruit is quite a troublesome task and has to be done with a lot of caution. First cut off the ends of the fruit then carefully cut through the skin but till the flesh only. After this work very carefully to peel the skin off with your finger to avoid being cut.
If you do not want to get an ugly rash, this is how you can get rid of spines from the prickly pear without damaging your skin. You should properly remove a globus, or tiny, sharpened spine, which can push you off of a prickly pear. Ideally, you will just be wearing thick, long-sleeved gloves, or using tongs, while handling any prickly pear, but if the glochids actually do find you, quickly remove them before they can dig their way through your skin.
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Even something as simple as not wearing rubber gloves while handling a prickly pear could cause hundreds of glochids to become tangled on the surface of your skin. You might have done all you can to prevent the glochids from getting into your fruit while cleaning and cooking it, but some can still get on your skin, despite your best efforts. While you may have done everything you could to avoid them while cleaning and preparing your fruit, one or two can still find their way onto your skin.
| How To Remove Spines From Prickly Pear Fruit | Shelf life |
| First cut off the ends of the fruit then carefully cut through the skin but till the flesh only | In refrigerator 3-5 days |
| After this work very carefully to peel the skin off with your finger to avoid being cut | At room temperature 7-10 days |
The biggest thing to be mindful of when cleaning your cactus fruits is being cautious about the tiny glochidia, which can easily get under your skin. One of the things you have to be aware of when cleaning your cactus fruit is that it is covered in tiny needles called glochids. Glochids are a popular name for the spines found on the fruit surfaces, and these are found on the surfaces of the cactus fruits.
Once the spines and glochids are removed from a cactus pear, you can either slice it off, or chop it up, and consume it raw. After the spines and glochids are removed, cut off the ends of the Prickly Pear, slice the fruit in half, and remove the seeds. Regardless of what method you use for removing the spines, the next step in making prickly pear juice is cutting off both ends and peeling it. Start by cutting the ends of the fruit, holding onto it, not letting your hands directly touch it, so that you do not get any spines stuck on your hands.
Once you have gently picked your fruit using the fork, leaving it inside will make sure that no flesh is torn off, place in a bucket filled with water and stir with a large spoon. We should remind you that you should not take your fork out after cleaning the fruit either, as it will still be needed when you are peeling off the skin. After cleaning the fruit and getting rid of any glochids, the next thing you will want to do is peel the skin to reveal the delicious flesh.
After washing the fruit in running water to remove any remaining gills, scrub the skin with a nylon-bristled brush to get rid of any remaining glochids and to scrub the fruit surfaces. You can use a potato peeler or vegetable brush to remove the spines and glochids, then rinse your fruit. Wearing rubber gloves, and holding your fruit in one hand, brush it vigorously with a brush to remove glochids, and then wash it under running water to get rid of any mud before you remove the skin. Once running tap water has removed any loose spines, brush your fruits skin with a nylon-bristled brush to remove all remaining glochids.
Wearing welding gloves will also do a good job in handling a prickly pear, to get rid of most of the spines beforehand, just hold the fruit lengthwise between your fingers and lightly scrub the skin against loose sand. Wear heavy gloves or use long tongs, because the spines are extremely annoying when they get trapped inside the skin. If you do end up with one or two lodged in your skin, the spines are easily removed from cactus using a pair of tweezers.
After all, you do not need a lot of stuff to end up with a clump of cactus spines, or pins, stuck to your skin. You are highly unlikely to die from being pierced with a cactus spine, but it does have the potential for causing some harm. Spines are a critical part of the technique, as they allow the pear-shaped pads of the Cholla, or Cactus, to catch passing animals. Some species of cactus pear might be without spines, but all of them will have glochids, which are tiny, difficult-to-see, barb-like spine clusters.
You can pick a pears fruit with ease using a pair of tongs, or by wearing thicker tongs or hands to pry fruit off of this cactus plant. While all the fruits on this cactus are edible, not all of them are necessarily ripe, so look for fruit with the darkest skins first, before they begin to wrinkle. If your fruit is unripe, the skin may not easily peel, while if it is overripe, the flesh will not bind well, making the peeling harder.
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For salsa making with pear, use the same method of scraping the skin as you would with the pear pads, and cut off the top and bottom of each pear. If picking the fresh ones, gently remove the spines from the cactus pads using a scrub brush in running water, and use a vegetable peeler to remove any lumps. To remove spines from the plant, put the plant upside-down in a bucket filled with warm water and leave it for overnight.
If using the boiling method, a blender, or juicer to remove spines, a linen napkin, clean pillowcase, or T-shirt material should be used, and the linen napkin should be placed in the strainer to filter the spines, flesh, and seeds. Breaking out a pair of needle-nosed tweezers and pulling off as many spines and glochids as you can is the best method for removing the spines and glochids you cannot remove manually. If a spine is embedded in your arm and you do not have tools available, you may also try to hunch down, push down on the shaft joints, and tug the arm out, though that is likely to cause some additional bleeding when you remove the spine.
How do you remove spines from prickly pear pads?
You can easily remove spines from cactus or prickly pear pads by cooking them on the grill. You don’t even have to turn them around over the flame; you just need to throw them right on the grill to sear and the little spines will fall off right away.
Will freezing help remove glochids from prickly pear?
A convenient way to remove glochids from prickly pear fruit is to freeze the whole fruit for 24 hours. Afterwards, you should let it defrost inside a colander. After it thaws, the juice will also come right out. Layering up prickly pear with a paper towel will help to filter and remove the glochids from the fruit.
Will cactus spines come out on their own?
Straight spines on cactuses like the saguaro cactus are the easiest to remove. On the other hand barbed cholla spears or hooked spines on barrel cactuses require a little more effort. When you try to remove barrel cactus spines, they frequently break, leaving pieces lodged under the skin.