Citrus Prickly Pear Sauce

Citrus Prickly Pear Sauce with Coconut Buckwheat Pancakes

 PRICKLY PEARS!
I can honestly say I have never made anything out of them before, let alone even hold one in my hand!  A friend gave me some prickly pear syrup before (thank you MW!!) from Arizona, that was good, very vibrant red and sweet with a slightly fruity flavor, but mostly really sweet.  I was impressed at the time with the color, almost neon, naturally, with no added colors... amazing!  Well, I happened to find some prickly pears at a local farmers market, so I decided to get some to experiment!  Fun, Fun! 

I was so excited about experimenting that I got home, put them in my refrigerator and forgot about them until about a week later!!  Isn't that always the way??  When I took them out I wondered if they were still good.  They didn't look bad, about the same as when I got them, a combination of green and dark reddish.  Luckily when I bought them the pricklies were already removed, so I didn't have to worry about that, but I had no idea the best way to get into them or what to do with them besides syrup...

After researching for a while online (I highly recommend reading Root Simple, a blog that has a plethora of prickly pear info, including the fact that 2 1/2 lbs of prickly pears will yeild about 2 1/2 c. of juice...)  I did figure out the best way to get into them, see steps below:

 1.  Cut the ends off the prickly pear...                                                  2.  Make a slice in the skin from one end of the pear to the other...

3.  Peel the skin off...                                                                       4.  Then just cut up the fruit into chunks, leaving the seeds in there...

I learned that the prickly pears are mostly used for jams, jellies and syrups, because of the texture of the fruit and the fact that they have quite a lot of little "jaw-breaker" like seeds.  Research also taught me that one of the easiest ways to get the seeds out is to cook it down and then strain it..  Step 4, shows the chunks ready to cook in a 1 qt sauce pan.  I had only purchased three of these little gems because I wasn't sure what I was doing with them yet...   at this point I am realizing that I am not going to get a very big yeild out of this, whatever it ends up to be.  (Yes, I was still undecided at this point...)

I added just about 1/4 c. water into the pot with the fruit, figuring that it would most likely evaporate out during the cooking process, but wanted to make sure there was enough moisture to 1. prevent scorching, 2. to help cook down the pulp a little quicker.  As the pulp began to break down I added some sugar, and continued to simmer on low until the sugar was dissolved and most of the pulp was cooked down enough to go through a strainer, and leave mostly the seeds.  The picture below is how it looked at this point.
  

During this cooking time is when I decided to make a sauce out of this.  In a couple of days I was planning on making some pancakes, and I had no syrup to go with them.  Because real maple syrup is so expensive right now, and because we don't buy regular pancake syrup due to the corn syrup/high fructose corn syrup that is in it, among other artificial things we stay away from, I figured this would be a good replacement.  Before I strained it I tasted it, and it was sweet with just a slight fruitiness to it, and I had maybe 1/2 c. of juice.  Hhhhmmm, was hoping for more...  What did I have to put into it that would taste good with it, but also extend it a little more.  I found three Florida oranges in my fridge and decided those would work!  So I juiced all three of them into the pot, seeds, and pulp going in along with the juice, after all, it was going to be strained anyway.  See picture below:

Again, I put it back on the heat to simmer for about 2 more minutes, just to extract flavor out of any of the pulp from the oranges, then strained it. Unfortunately I didn't have a fine mesh strainer (which I would highly recommend) so the end sauce still had a few small pieces of pulp, and I did have a couple of stray seeds that had to be picked out with a spoon, no big deal.  At the very end, I added about 1/2 Tbs of salted sweet cream butter, and swirled it in (I have no whisk...) until it was completely melted.  It ended up being delicious and could easily be a coulis by adding a touch of cornstarch slurry (cornstarch dissolved into cold water, adding to boiling sauce while whisking) and then straining it in a fine mesh strainer.  Since I didn't have the cornstarch at the time, or the whisk for that matter, I kept it at a thinner sauce.  I could have thickened it by simmering longer and reducing, but I wouldn't have much left at that point!  I ended up with about 1 cup, maybe slightly less.

Ingredient List:
3 Prickly Pears
1/4 c. water
3 T. sugar (or to taste)
3 Oranges -juiced
1/2 Tbs Salted Butter  *if you can't have dairy, you could leave this out, or add another flavoring or liquor that you can have

End yeild:  about 1 cup.

The sauce was great!  We ate it with gluten-free, egg-free Coconut Buckwheat Pancakes (pictured at top of post), which will most likely be my blog for tomorrow, so don't forget to check in then!  In the meantime, I'm going to go figure out when I can work another trip to the farmers market into my schedule!