How to prepare the prickly pear

Pick the sabras (prickly pear) from the cacti in the early morning before the wind starts.

Always wear thick rubber gloves (not the thin, disposable ones). Don't touch the sabra skins with your bare hands.

1) Take a stick to the end of which you have nailed an empty tin can without the cover.

2) Place it directly under and touching the sabra, and the sabra will fall right into the can.

3) Transfer each sabra into a pail. When they are all collected, spray them with water with a lot of pressure to remove the large spines. (Another method of removing the spines is by rolling them in the sand.) Strain out the water and transfer the sabras to another, clean container. Rinse them again to remove the glochids (the small hairlike prickles).

4) Cut a slice of the sabra foff each end of the fruit, thick enough so that you can see the beginning of seeds in the fruit.

5) Cut the peel lengthwise until you reach the fruit. Peel off the skin gently.

6) Wash the sabras again. Serve cold.

WARNING: Do not give sabras to children to eat because tiny glochids may still be on the fruit and can enter lips and tongues. Glochids are difficult to remove (tweezers can help) and only after a few days will they be absorbed into the body.

The sabra is a nutritious and refreshing fruit.

For further information about cacti and sabras, call Yael Froelich, 09 743 1649, ecologist and cactus specialist with a showcase garden of water-saving plants in Hod Hasharon.