SEASONAL SLUMBERS

Well, here we are in September, a melancholy month in some ways - not quite the end of summer but not quite autumn either. At least here in Sicily, although the heat persists, the nights are more bearable amd, in a country where the culinary seasons are still respected, autumn fruit is beginning to appear. The fichi d'India (prickly pears) are already here and soon the orange season will be in full swing.

That, however, means goodbye to anguria (watermelon) until next summer but not in my dreams. Bertie-Pierrine, as you see, approves!

 

MORNING GOLD

It is supposed to have been a Sicilian who said,

"Al mattino le arance sono d'oro, a pranzo d'argento e alla sera di piombo."  ("Oranges are gold in the morning, silver at lunchtime and lead in the evening.")

Whilst there seems to be some evidence that they can slow down the digestion the later in the day they are eaten, I have to admit that for me, they are always "gold"! In particular, my spremuta of fresh Sicilian orange juice in the morning, from November to February when the oranges are at their best, sets me up for the day. No self-respecting Sicilian bar owner would allow less than the finest spremuta to be served in his establishment, so  I bid a fond farewell to the juice at the end of February or, at the latest, mid-March. (This is why, when you visit Sicilian tourist sites in summer and see stalls offering spremuta, you won't see any Sicilian drinking it, because he or she will know that the oranges have either been imported or frozen.)

Imagine my surprise then, when this morning the local bar owner greeted me with,"This morning we have spremuta! They brought me oranges from Noto and they're good, so we are serving spremuta this week! But of course, when they offer me oranges from Spain, I don't take them."  There we have it: Oranges from Noto are OK but if they come with more food miles than that, they are rejected. And that is why this morning's spremuta tasted so good!

Whilst on the subject of fruit juice, if any of you have been to Sicily recently you may have noticed pomegranate juice on sale at tourist sites. The properties of the pomegranate have been rediscovered recently and there are companies producing excellent organic juice. But the fruit is out of season in summer so the juice, despite a few pomegrantes being on display, is unlikely to be freshly squeezed on the premises. Think about it - how much juice do you get out of a pomegranate if you try to squeeze one at home? There is nothing wrong with the commercial versions and they are very refreshing. They also make a passable, though non-traditional, granita.

But I'll stick to my "morning gold" while it lasts, thanks!

THE END OF SUMMER

Summer has officially ended and, whilst I am not a beachy person and rejoice in everything at last being open again, I will be sorry to see the end of the gelato season and of its companions cremolate and granite.

Left to right:  granita di mandarino; cremolata di gelsi (mulberry); granita di pesche e fichi d'India
(peaches and prickly pear, the latter being a late summer addition to the granita repertoire)

My favourite peaches,  pesche tabbacchierie, get larger and less sweet as August ends but then these delights appear:

Centre:  frutta di Martorana
Right: "cakes" of cotognata (quince paste)

Finally, I cannot let the summer end without sharing this with you:  the other day, a Sicilian friend said he had spotted a British man coming out of the B&B opposite his house. I asked how he had known the man was British.

"Because he was wearing sandals and socks", came the reply.

Embed from Getty Images

FEASTING WITH AN OLD FRIEND

My friend Carol King, who has recently returned to Sicily, and I decided to celebrate Ferragosto a day late this year, so I kind of cooked her a little meal:

The antipasti included olives, sun-dried tomatoes, fresh datterini tomatoes, mini sausages, bresaola and Parma ham topped with Grana cheese shavings, marinated mushrooms and - I must tell you about this - watermelon with salted cucumber. My original intention was to chuck the cucumber - peeled, deseeded, chopped, salted, left then rinsed, drained and chilled - into the salad but at the last minute I thought it would be a nice addition to the dish of watermelon. Turns out I was right!  The seemingly small apples around the antipasti dishes are actually azzaroli or Neapolitan medlars, which are related to hawthorn. There are mini-pears as well and they are a fine partner for the cheese.

The main course was grilled chicken salad with grilled nectarines. (Yes, I have a thing for grilled nectarines!)   I marinated the chicken in culinary rosewater before grilling and seasoned it with sumac afterwards. I used the dressing I invented for this recipe. The other ingredients were grilled peppers and rocket leaves.

For dessert, I made strawberry tiramisù and Carol brought along the delicious sweet treats on the right.

Everything on this menu can be made in advance and all you have to do is make the antipasti look pretty and assemble the salad.

BISTECCA IN SALSA DI PISTACCHI

This week I wanted to do something different with the pizzaiola steak cut and I decided that a pistacchio and mushroom sauce would do the trick.  In Italy, you just ask the butcher for pizzaiola steak and the cut most often used for this is round steak.  I asked for pizzaiola steak for four people.  I also wanted to incorporate cedro [citron] and this is what I did:

Bistecca in salsa di pistacchi

Cut one cedro in half.  Juice one half and marinate the steak pieces in it with a little dried oregano. Leave it in the fridge for a few hours.  [This will tenderise the meat further as well as adding flavour.] Slice the other half and grill the slices quickly, on both sides, in a little olive oil on a ridged griddle pan.  Set aside.

Drain the steak and pat dry with kitchen paper. Cook the pieces in 2 tblsp olive oil on a ridged griddle pan.  Do not overcook them! Place on kitchen paper as they are ready.  

Keep the steak warm in a dish in the oven while you make the sauce:  Soften a chopped white onion in 2 tblsp olive oil in a frying pan.  Do not allow it to brown.  When it is soft, add 200 gr sliced white mushrooms.  Cook for a few minutes, then add 200 ml panna di cucina if you are in Italy or single cream if you are not.  Keep stirring for a few minutes and season.  Do not let it boil.  Off the heat, add a generous sprinkling of farina di pistacchi  [pistacchio flour - very finely ground pistacchi].

Serve the steaks with the sauce and cedro slices.

GOLDEN AUTUMN

Suddenly, in Sicily, the roadside lorries teem with different kinds of fruit, most of which you can purchase by the crate. The little Etna apples, though, are not quite as abundant outside their local area but when you find them, you have a treasure.  Chestnuts are swept from outdoor tables into large bags and, if you buy fichi d'India [prickly pears] from the greengrocer or the supermarket, they will usually have had most of their thorns removed. Otherwise, handle with extreme care!

PIZZA ESTIVA

I nearly called this "Pizza not-what-it-seems" as all the Italians I have shown the photo to are convinced it's topped with aubergines!  However,  pizza estiva or "summer pizza" is more catchy.

My starting point for this was the recipe for soft, Modican pizza I was given a few years ago and I added grilled nectarines - one of my favourite summer ingredients - and pancetta cubes.  I used some datterino tomatoes and passata instead of chopped tomatoes.

Pizza estiva

250 gr 00 flour or strong white bread flour
1 cube of fresh yeast, crumbled, or a sachet of easy-blend yeast
coarse sea salt
warm water
200 gr passata
about 20 datterino or other very small cherry tomatoes
dried oregano
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
chopped basil leaves
140 gr pancetta dolce or unsmoked bacon cubes
250 gr mozzarella, sliced thinly or ready-crumbled mozzarella for pizza
a little grated Grana Padana or Ragusano cheese
4 - 6 nectarines, depending on size
extra virgin olive oil

Mix the flour, crumbled yeast cube or sachet of yeast and some coarse seasalt together with enough warm water to make a soft, springy dough. I use a processor and it takes about 3 seconds but you can mix it in a bowl by hand if you want. Then knead it hard – slap it against the sides of the bowl. [Do this even if you have mixed it in a processor.] Leave to double in size in an oiled bowl covered with a clean, damp tea towel.
Slice the nectarines as thinly as you can, then grill them quickly on both sides on a lightly oiled ridged grill pan. Let them cool on kitchen paper.
Now whizz up the datterini or cherry tomatoes in a processor - you just want them mushy - and mix them with the passata, garlic, oregano and basil. Add some coarse seasalt.
Cook the pancetta cubes in a bowl in the microwave for 1 minute.
Slice 6 nectarines as thinly as you can and cook them in a little oil on a ridged griddle pan - about 1 minute per side.  Leave to drain on kitchen paper.
Cover a baking tray or sheet with baking parchment and oil it lightly.
When the dough has almost risen, heat the oven to 180 C [fan] or 200 C.
Chuck the dough onto the oiled baking parchment and stretch it out as best you can into an oblong shape. [I love this bit as it’s messy.] Pat it out with the heel of your hand, dipping your hand in the tomato mixture so that it doesn’t stick to the dough.
Cover the dough with the mozzarella.
Spoon the tomato mixture over, add the nectarine slices and pancetta cubes.  Sprinkle over the grated cheese.
Put the pizza in the oven and cook for 45 minutes. 

Serves 4 people with generous slices.  You could always make two for more guests / hungry people. Italians, of course, like a whole pizza each!

CHICKEN IN PROSECCO WITH CEDRO

Leafing through an old recipe book the other day, I was reminded of Moroccan preserved lemons. I used to be able to get these in the UK and, indeed, had sometimes made them myself. However, being short of both time and patience, I started to think that, in this land of citrus fruit, there ought to be a quicker way of approaching the taste. Then I started to wonder if I could get anywhere near it if I used cedri [citrons], which Sicilians like to just slice and eat with coarse seasalt. I decided to try and the result was better than I'd expected!  Here's what I did:

Chicken in Prosecco with Grilled Cedro

First, slice one cedro into rounds as you would a lemon. [Sicilian cedri are enormous!]  Halve the slices, put them on a plate and sprinkle with coarse seasalt and about ten grinds of cinnamon from a cinnamon mill.  Leave them for at least an hour, then heat 2 tablesp olive oil on a ridged griddle pan and grill the slices over medium heat for about 1 min. each side.  Stand well back when you put the slices on the griddle and when you turn them.  Put them onto kitchen paper on a plate.

Marinate 6 - 8 chicken drumsticks [skin on ] for about 2 hours in 200 ml Prosecco, 2 tblesp olive oil, 1 tablesp honey, 0.5 tablesp Chinese plum sauce [which I have recently been able to get my hands on again and have missed], about 0.5 tablesp dried herbes de Provence, some sprigs of fresh thyme [lemon thyme if you can get it] and some freshly ground seasalt and black pepper. 

Heat the oven to 180°C.

Lift the chicken out of the marinade with a slotted spoon but keep the marinade. Lay the chicken on a rack in a foil-lined roasting dish and cook for about 45 mins., checking now and then.  When you think it is nearly ready, put the marinade into a pan with the cedro slices and about 20 preserved green olives, drained but still with the accompanying small vegetables that have been used to flavour them. [In Sicily olives are always preserved with slices of sweet Sicilian carrot.]   Heat until the marinade comes to the boil.

Place the chicken on a platter , surround with the cedro slices and olives [removed from the marianade with a slotted spoon] and garnish with some chopped, flat-leaved parsley and some more sprigs of thyme.  Put the marinade in a sauce boat for those who would like some.

Serve with garlic-roasted small potatoes or these from Nigella .

Serves 4.

Buon appetito

SICILY SCENE REVISITED - THE FIRST POST

In a few days' time, this blog will be ten years old,  Between now and the "blog birthday", and with your indulgence, I am going to repost some of the articles that have been popular, have given me great pleasure to write or that have otherwise been significant for readers and for me.

Here, then, is the first short post that kicked off the whole thing. I confess I didn't quite know what I was doing!

Tangerine Land - 21st April 2006

When I was a little girl, in Bristol, England, in the 1950s, you could only get tangerines at Christmas. They were about the most exotic food you could buy and we didn't differentiate between tangerines, mandarins, satsumas or clementines. Any round, orange, citrus fruit that was too small to be an orange was a tangerine!I can still see my father's delighted face as he came home on winter nights and produced a tangerine from each of the pockets of his long, dark blue overcoat. I thought the smell of the tangerine was heavenly and even now, it signifies Christmas for me. I didn't know where the fruit came from but I knew I wanted to go there!

Coincidentally I am writing this almost 33 years to the day since my father's death. How happy he would be to know that I have come to live in the land of the tangerine!

FRUITY SURPRISE

Just back [details coming later in the week] and I find that Sicily can still surprise me, for I had never seen these on sale before:

Come to think of it, I had never seen them anywhere and I wasn't the only one, as even elderly Sicilians were asking the greengrocer what they were. Sorbe is the answer and I gather they are related to rowans and are the fruit of this tree. They seem to be a largely forgotten fruit and these come from the Etna area.  The greengrocer said they can be eaten when they turn brown and I can tell you that they have a pleasant, peary taste.

Più si vive, più s'impara - you live and learn.

AUTUMN

Real:

Not real but a pretty display in the greengrocer's:

MELON MEDLEY

"Una busta, cinque euro; un assaggio, non si paga! - Five euros a bag and you don't have to pay for a taste!" calls the fruit seller from a lorry teeming with melons on a hot morning.

Then he carves off an enormous, juicy slice for me to try and even offers to carry a bag of six melons home for me if I buy them.  I was convinced at the first refreshing bite and, as he is carrying, I buy a bag of his potatoes as well.

I see that he is sold out by 10 am and the next day he is there again, with piles of large, shiny black cherries. ..... 

CHICKEN WITH COTOGNATA AND MODICAN CHOCOLATE

I started making chicken with cotognata [quince paste] some years ago and this autumn, I decided the dish needed an update.  After some thought, I came up with the idea of adding chocolate but not any old chocolate, you understand, for if there is one thing I have learnt since being in Modica it is that if you are going to add chocolate to a savoury dish it will only work if you use chocolate made to the Aztec method [no dairy fats] - Modican chocolate! You can either use pure chocolate or, for the kick I wanted, chilli-pepper-flavoured Modican chocolate.  Here's what I did:

Chicken with cotognata and Modican chocolate

To serve four people generously, you need one skinned and boned chicken breast if you are in Italy, where the two halves of the breast are sold as one or two breasts if you are in the UK, where each half is sold as one breast. Ask the butcher to cut the breast [s] into 8 pieces. You could add a couple of drumsticks, skin off, too, if you like. 

Marinate the chicken in 0.25 litre of white wine, adding some seasoning and a few fresh sage leaves, for about 2 hours.

Meanwhile, chop one square from a bar of chilli-flavoured Modican chocolate as finely as you can and cut one "cake" of quince paste - about 100 gr - into small cubes. [When I was in the UK, you used to be able to buy Spanish quince paste from delicatessens. This is not as thick as cotognata but would do, as it has to melt anyway.] 

When you are ready to cook the chicken, drain it, pat dry with kitchen paper and discard the marinade but keep a few of the sage leaves.  Slice a large white onion and soften this in 4 tablsp olive oil in a large, wide pan but do not brown it. When the onion is soft, add the chicken pieces with any sage leaves still clinging to them and brown them all over.  

Peel, core and slice 3 quinces or 4 pears and when the chicken is brown on all sides, add the fruit slices to the pan with the cotognata and chocolate.  Add 600 ml water, some more seasoning and a sprinkling of ground cloves.

Cover and cook over a low heat for 1 hour, stirring occasionally.

You won't be able to taste the chocolate, which is as it should be, but the chilli will give this sweet and sour dish a kick! Serve with garlic-roasted potatoes with rosemary or with some lovely mashed potato to soak up the juices.

Buon appetito!

PEACHES AND SCREAM

It is no secret to regular readers that my favourite summer fruits are the little pesche tabacchiere or "snuffbox" peaches but today in the supermarket I was surprised to see platerine, or flat mini-nectarines, displayed with them. I've never seen them here before but have now learned that they are actually an older fruit. They're pretty good, too!

Pesche tabacchiere

Platerine

I was not, however, as surprised as I was when I read the newspaper and discovered that yesterday a man had fired four gunshots at two street fruit vendors in the centre of Paternò.  Fortunately he wasn't a very good shot and no one was injured, though the vendors are understandably suffering from shock. After firing the shots, the man threw a large melon onto the ground before making off in his car. The reason for the attack? He wasn't satisfied with the quality of the melons the vendors had previously sold him. The man has now been arrested.

Melons for sale in Modica

SUMMER PUDDING SICILIAN STYLE!

Leafing through some British magazines yesterday, I realised it had been years since I'd made a summer pudding, so I decided to put that to rights and give the dessert a Sicilian touch by using mirtilli [whortleberries] and adding the rind and juice of an orange.  

My trusty pudding basin is bigger than the one needed for this recipe so I was expecting a right mess as I turned the pudding out but it was OK!

As the recipe is quite simple and people who like cooking can often follow instructions in the language they are learning, I've just put it on my blog for English students and you can see it here.

If you try it, I hope you enjoy this slightly Sicilian version of summer pudding!

TAGLIATA WITH CHERRIES

The cherry harvest continues and the other day, I decided I wanted to experiment by using some with a tagliata [the sirloin cut]. I know all you Italians will be horrified again at such a mixture of sweet and savoury ingredients, which you claim you never use together, so please, look away now! 

There are also days when I long for some of the Middle Eastern flavours I used in my cooking in Britain and that is why I came up with the idea of using rosewater in the dressing.

The dish turned out well so, for the brave among you. this is what I did:

Ask the butcher for a 600 gr piece of tagliata [if you are in Italy] or sirloin if you are elsewhere.  A few hours before you want to serve the salad, lightly oil the tagliata on both sides, place it on a heated, ridged griddle pan and cook it on both sides to your liking. [I like mine medium rare for a salad.]  Take it out of the pan and leave it to cool on a cutting board. When it has cooled sufficiently, slice it diagonally into fairly wide strips and put in the fridge.

Destalk 500 gr  ready-washed spinach leaves. Tear them if they are very large and put them in the fridge. 

Cook 8 slices frozen, grilled aubergine as directed on the pack and put in the fridge when cool. [You can, of course, grill your own if you have time but let them dry on kitchen paper if you do.]

Wash, stone and halve about 20 cherries and chill these, too.

Now make the dressing:  In a small bowl, mix the following ingredients well with a fork:  5 tablesp olive oil, 3 teasp culinary rosewater, seasalt and black pepper to taste and a few chilli flakes.  Leave the dressing to chill in the fridge.

When you are ready to assemble the salad, put the spinach on a large serving platter, then add the aubergine slices and, on top of these, the tagliata slices, some torn fresh basil leaves and the cherries.  Give the dressing a final, robust stir with a fork, then drizzle it over the salad and serve.

Serves 4.

SUMMER WONDERS

I'm always cheered by the arrival of these mini-pears and I'm rather sentimentally attached to them because they were the main Sicilian fruit in season when I first came to live here, just over nine years ago:

As some of you may remember, the tabacchiere peaches [named for their snuffbox-like shape] are my favourite summer fruit of all:

When the angurie [watermelons] start falling off the fruit vans, we'll know that summer is in full swing!

BALTHAZAR'S ROAST

It was putting out the Sicilian crib, with both Sicilian and more traditional figurines, which I was given some years ago that did it: I decided I wanted some eastern flavour in my weekend cooking and this is what I came up with:

Ask your butcher for a 500 gr piece of lonza [pork loin] in butcher's netting.  When you get it home, rub it all over as best you can with a cut clove of garlic, some seasoning and some mixed fresh herbs such as thyme and sage - especially thyme. [An Italian butcher will probably do this for you, using his own mixture - trust him!]  Put it in a dish and marinate it in 2 glasses of white wine and 1 tablsp culinary rosewater in the fridge overnight.

About an hour before you want to serve it, put it in a small, foil-lined roasting pan with the marinade and roast for 45 minutes at 180 C. 

Five minutes or so before the end of this time, put 2 tablesp pomegranate molasses and 200 gr frozen mirtilli [which are not blueberries or cranberries as some dictionaries suggest but whortleberries] in a small pan over a low heat. Stir in a few pomegranate seeds and cook, stirring, until the mixture starts to bubble. Now cook and stir the mixture for a further minute. When the 45 mins for the roast are up, pour the mixture over it and cook at 150 C for a further 5 mins.

Let the roast stand for a few minutes, then cut the net off, slice the roast and serve with the mirtilli and their sauce. Sprinkle a few more pomegranate seeds over the slices if you like.

I suggest serving this with herb-roasted potatoes, which can go in the oven at the same time as the roast.

I have no idea whether Balthazar might have eaten pork, by the way!

FUSION POACHED CHICKEN WITH RICE SALAD

I don't hear the term "fusion cooking" much any more but then, I do live in a place where most people just do not want to try food from other lands! I, however,  still sometimes hanker after strong spices and, on those occasions,  a smidgin of cinnamon or red chilli pepper will not do.

A few weeks ago, I made up this recipe for poached chicken - a neglected way of cooking one, I feel. It is a popular way of cooking chicken breasts but you can also cook a whole chicken by this method.  The Sicilian ingredients are cinnamon and red chilli pepper in decent amounts and the lemon. If you add carrots, they could be sweet, Sicilian ones.

OK, now the size of the chicken you use will depend on the size of the largest pot you've got with a lid. Because I have a couple of large but not enormous pots, I only poach a whole chicken when I can get a small one, which is difficult in Sicily, though not in the UK. You need a pot that will take your chicken, plus a few vegetables and spices, comfortably and in which there is room to cover the chicken with liquid plus one inch.

Having selected your pot and got your chicken, season the inside of the chicken with coarse seasalt and a few twists of mixed peppercorns. Add half a lemon., half a red onion, 1 unpeeled garlic clove, 2 fresh bay leaves, a little dried oregano and knob of peeled, fresh ginger. Close the opening with a wooden skewer or some cocktail sticks.

Put the chicken in the pot and cover with water and 125 ml white wine. Season the liquid and add 2 more knobs peeled, fresh ginger, 2 dried chilli peppers, 1 unpeeled garlic clove, the other halves of the lemon and red onion, 1 large cinnamon stick [we get whackingly fat cinnamon sticks here] and a few fresh sage leaves. You can add a few unpeeled, sliced potatoes if you like - in my case it was a matter of how many I could cram in - and some sliced carrots if you wish. [I forgot these this time.]

Put the pot on the heat, bring to the boil, then put the lid on and lower the heat.  Simmer for 50 mins., then turn the heat off and just leave everything for 10 mins.

The chicken will be so tender that it will be falling off the bone.

Last night I invented a rather jolly rice salad to go with this dish. Sicilians would be really puzzled by this as they seem to have difficulty in imagining a rice salad that does not contain tuna. [I can't eat fish and in restaurants, even when I ask if it's possible to have a rice salad without it, they will say, "Yes" but still bring me a portion with tuna, as if it's not fish at all. I've given up.]  For this rice salad, apart from the pineapple, an ingredient which I had planned, I used what I happened to have and it was much more successful than I expected:

Cook 500 gr rice suitable for salads according to the instructions on the pack. Drain and rinse several times in cold water. Transfer to a large serving bowl. Add the slices of a whole, fresh pineaapple, a chopped red onion, a few chopped aubergines that have been preserved in oil, some fresh basil leaves and some sundried cherry tomatoes over which you have sprinkled a little oil.  Put the mixture in the fridge until you are ready to serve.

Make up a dressing of 6 tablesp olive oil, 1 tablesp red wine vinegar, 1 tablesp honey, a little dried oregano and a seasoning of a couple of twists of mixed peppercorns and fine seasalt. Mix all together and put the bowl in the fridge till you are ready to serve the salad. Then chuck the dressing over and toss with a spoon and fork.

You can either serve the carved chicken - it won't need much carving! - with the potatoes and some of the cooking liquid and serve the rice salad separately or you can serve the slices of chicken on the salad with the potatoes around them.  I prefer to do the latter.

I've also seved this with this black rice salad  [and I remembered the carrots that time!] but I think I prefer yesterday's white rice version.

POLLO AI FICHI D'INDIA

It's that time of year again and here come the prickly pears!  In their honour, I invented this recipe at the weekend. The idea of using fruit in a savoury dish has shocked some of my Italian friends again but the recipe worked really well. It's not for those of you who are sensitive to seeds, though.

Pollo ai fichi d'India - Chicken with prickly pears

If you're in Italy, ask your butcher to cut half a chicken breast a fettine. If you're in the UK, ask him to slice a boned, skinless chicken breast thinly. 

Peel three prickly pears in the way that a Sicilian taught me:  put the fruit on a plate or board and hold it steady on its side with a fork. Top and tail it. Still holding it steady with the fork, cut a lengthwise slit in the skin with a knife and then cut round the fruit.  You have to be careful not to touch the skins with your hands as you can still get a nasty prickle even if you buy the fruit dethorned.  Keep holding it with the fork to slice it.

Heat 4 tablesp olive oil in a wide pan and brown the chicken fillet slices lightly. Add 350 gr button mushrooms or sliced mushrooms and 250 ml white wine.  Stir everything and then add the drained contents of a 190 gr jar of small artichokes in oil. Set aside three or four of your tidiest prickly pear slices for a garnish later and add the rest of the slices to the pan. Season the mixture with seasalt to taste and a few twists from a peppermill of mixed peppercorns. Cover the pan and cook for about 50 mins over a low heat.

Just before the end of cooking, take the pan off the heat and add 200 ml panna di cucina [Italian cooking cream, which is thinner than British single cream].  Stir it in well and put the pan back on the heat for a couple of minutes, still stirring.

Garnish the dish with the reserved prickly pear slices.

Buon appetito.