![]() Just one more tidbit on the Nopales recipes. Yes the nopal salad with queso fresco sounds really good, although in our family we never make it that way. We'll have to try them that way. By the way try to use the youngest and most tender PENCAS. A "penca" is what you call an individual stem/leaf/pad. See illustration. That's the top one. The old pencas are too tough, stringy, and inedible. A nopal refers to the entire living organism.
Surprisingly, nopales are very versatile. One way is the way every one has suggested. Cleaning the pencas (dethorning them), chopping into cubes, and boiling with onions and cilantro. Once their done, you drain the water and can be used for a variety of dishes. One is a type of salsa, with chopped fresh red tomatoes, white onions, green chiles and cilantro (aka Bandera salsa, because of the colors of the Mexican flag-green, white, and red). Sometimes we even make this variation with chopped avocado (NOT MASHED, that's guacamole). With the cubed avocado, the avocado is still a bit whole and gives it a good texture.
The freshly boiled nopales can also be used to make an omelette. "Nopales con huevos" are made by sautéing in butter or oil chopped onions, peppers, and tomatoes along with about...oh...half a cup to a cup of chopped nopales (You know...a little of this and a little of that) in a skillet. Next, crack about 2 to 4 eggs into the mix and fold the cooked eggs in until thoroughly cooked.
There are too many recipes I could mention that use nopales: Costillitas de puerco en salsa verde con nopales, tortas de camarón con nopales, etc. Like I said, very versatile.
Did you know you could barbecue your nopales too? Well of course you can. This is my favorite way to enjoy the pure flavor of the nopales. Take a fresh tender penca de nopal and clean off the spines. Rinse it off under running water. Pat dry. Then place the whole penca de nopal on the grill of your barbecue. Let it grill on one side for about 5 to 7 minutes, then flip it over. Grill it on your backyard barbecue until the edges begin to char just a bit, and the whole nopal has a grayish-green tint with plenty of grill lines across. Make sure you do not overcook them or burn them. "Nopales asados" can be enjoyed with carne asada, frijoles, arroz, cebollas asadas, and plenty of cerveza on a hot summer barbecue night. ¡Buen provecho!
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The fruit of the nopal plant, called TUNA (not the fish, which in Spanish is called atún), has to be by far my favorite part of the nopal. Frankly, I have a sweet tooth and love all kinds of fruits and desserts. If you do too, then you'll love tunas. They are quite good while they are still green, but are sweeter when they have some red color to them. The skin of a tuna is also covered in spines, although finer and more insidious. These small little spines, called ajuates are hard to see sometimes, and can be very irritating if you get them stuck in you. So to enjoy the sweet flesh of the tuna you'll have to handle them with much care. Use gloves if necessary. Cut off both tips of the tuna with a knife, forming a cylinder of sorts. Then cut along the length of the tuna, deep enough to go past the skin, which is about an eight to a fourth of an inch. From that cut just peel the entire outer rind and discard. Put your freshly peeled tuna into a separate dish or bowl. They can be eaten just as is, right on the spot. Or they can be cubed or quartered and mixed with other fruit (oranges, jamaica, watermelon, bananas, etc) to make a fruit salad.
Just beware: tunas have lots of hard little seeds you cannot crack or chew, like a Guayaba (guava). There is a saying in Mexico, that if you have diarrhea (chorro), eat lots of tunas, becuase of the seeds. Si comes muchas tunas, te vas a tapar. Translation. If you eat too many tunas, you'll get clogged up (constipated). I prefer to see it as maintaining regularity in one's consumption of dietary fiber, don't you?
The Nopal and its fruit, the tuna, are a Mexican staple. Along with beans, corn, and many other items, nopales are what make Mexican food and Mexico unique. Which is where the saying "tienes una penca de nopal en la frente" comes from. We are Mexican, and no matter where we go, our Mexican-ness comes along, no matter what some will do to hide it. After all it's impossible, and a devastating shame to our culture, heritage, and ancestors, to try to hide the cactus pad on our forehead. So have some nopales y tunas. Enjoy!
Cordialmente,
Steven Francisco Hernández-López
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