Snacking on Spring Cactus Pads
Originally uploaded by mikeysklar
We tried our hand at foraging for wild foods last summer. Our success stories were mesquite and prickly pear fruit. While reading about those I realized that other parts of the cactus such as the young pads (nopales / nopalitos) are quite popular in some parts of the world.
Gathering / Cleaning
Yesterday, I watched a handful of youtube videos then went to the park to score a few nopalitos. Within minutes I had gathered 5 lbs of pads using only a pair of tongs. Much like the prickly pear fruit I just burned the stickers off over the stove flame and dipped them in boiling water to wash away the remains and soften up the glochids. The young spines come right off with a knife. I finally went over the nearly smooth pad with a old sponge to try and pickup any remaining stickers.
Cooking
Lots of options for cooking the pads. I'm partial to the idea of coating them with olive oil and grilling them. I didn't have a grill handy so I went with frying them in a pan with a bit of bacon grease and they came out quite edible. A little snotty for the texture oriented. The pads can also be baked.
2 comments:
Heh... snotty. I like that description. It's true they're full of mucilagenous compunds, but the good thing about it is that the mucilage releases the nutrients and carbohydrates from the pads slowly so your body assimilates them better.
It's a boon for diabetics because eating cactus pads doesn't result in quite so high of a spike in blood sugar after eating, as opposed to other foods.
We use nopales all the time - they are easy to find, only a bit dangerous to harvest, and super nutritious (full of calcium, fiber, magnesium, vitB... and lots of other goodness I can't remember).
To get rid of the slime (baba de nopal - the stuff that you folks used to make natural paint awhile ago):
Cook the cactus with tomatillo husks. The husks absorb the slime, leaving the cactus with a much more friendly texture. I've also heard of people using onion/garlic or avocado leaves.
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