(The Savor the Southwest guest poster today is Barbara Rose. She has lived and worked at Bean Tree Farm since 1985. She is an enthusiastic expert in all things Sonoran Desert and has taught hundreds of students how to live in and appreciate this fragile and glorious ecosystem. We thank her for her knowledge and years of inspiration.)
My grandma Evie was born in Brooklyn in 1900 to Ukrainian immigrants, and she moved to southwest Florida in the 1920s. Her back yard was a forest of avocado and citrus trees, and her kitchen was fragrant with crocks of garlicky green tomatoes, cucumber pickles and pots of simmering chicken soup “with the feet” (her way of saying the whole chicken). She smeared onion-infused chicken fat on slices of dense black pumpernickel, and served up bowls of cold, sweet-sour beet borscht, with a hot boiled potato and big dollop of sour cream. I am so grateful that she shared with me a treasure of food and family stories.
Beets have been pickled and soured by lactic acid fermentation for ages. I love beets, but I’m not so good at growing them. Prickly pear cactus thrive, and the ripe fruits are delicious, nutritious, and a gorgeous color.
The animals know when prickly pears are ripe. If they have been nibbling, it is time to pick.
I’ve developed a way to make borscht with fermented prickly pears- red desert fruits that sour nicely, have a sweet earthy flavor, and carry far away family food traditions into the desert food forest I love and care for!
I hope you enjoy the recipe, expand on it, and make it your own.
Mash the fruit. It is easier if you freeze first as this helps break down the cell walls.
Be sure to strain the liquid through a fine mesh strainer to catch every last glochid (those are the tiny thorns).
Simmering the juice and broth helps meld the flavors.
SONORAN DESERT BORSCHT
Makes 2 quarts
1 quart fermented, sweet-sour prickly pear fruit juice (see method below)
1 quart broth, strained and chilled (chicken, vegetable, bone, mesquite, or combo, flavored with herbs, alliums, chiles, or whatever you have.)
1 hot boiled potato per serving
Sour cream, crema, yogurt
Combine prickly pear mixture and broth. Simmer with salt, pepper, chile, and your choice of herbs to taste to blend flavors. Chill if serving cold.
To each bowl of borscht add a boiled potato. Garnish with sour cream, and serve with sides of hard-boiled eggs, green onion, and sliced cucumbers.. Borscht turns a gorgeous magenta-pink when the cream is stirred in. Enjoy!
How to ferment prickly pear juice:
Add 1/2 cup of kombucha or whey (liquid strained from yogurt or cheese-making) to 1 quart of prickly pear juice a day or so ahead of making your borscht. Cover with a cloth and taste on occasion. It will develop a sweet-sour flavor as it ferments. When it has that “tang” but still retains some sweetness, it’s ready to use. Sometimes I combine citrus juice with the prickly pear and ferment both. This juice will store in your fridge for some time, becoming more sour from fermentation. It can also be frozen.
Final step: Serve for lunch. Goes well with other desert delicacies. Find recipes in the Desert Harvesters’ cookbook Eat Mesquite, a Cookbook for Sonoran Desert Foods.
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You can find more recipes for prickly pear and other wild desert foods in Eat Mesquite and More: a Cookbook for Sonoran Desert Foods and Living, available at Food Conspiracy Co-op, EXO, Crisol, Mission Garden, Desert Museum, and online at desertharvesters.org. More recipes can be found in Cooking the Wild Southwest: Delicious Recipes for Desert Plants.
Savor the Southwest: 