Strips of just-picked nopal squeak against the blade and weep a clear, okra-like sap across the cutting board. Toss them into a hot, dry skillet and they turn tender and tangy while that sticky sap cooks off in a minute. That squeak and that sap sit at the base of nopales mexican cuisine, where Mexicans use the prickly pear cactus in two forms. The flat green pads become a vegetable called nopales that you cook or eat raw. The round, jewel-colored fruit becomes a sweet snack called tunas that people eat fresh or press into juice.
The two forms are the same plant at different ages. Cooks pick young, tender pads while they are still soft and thin, then eat them as a green vegetable. The fruit, the tuna, grows along the edge of the pad. It ripens to deep red, purple, or gold before anyone eats it fresh or juices it. Both share one rule. You have to strip off the glochids first, the tiny hair-like spines that cover the skin and sting your fingers. When the pads are very young and thin, some cooks even eat them raw in salads. Most markets sell pads and fruit trimmed and de-spined, so you skip the worst of that chore.
Sliced or diced, the cooked pads take the name nopalitos, and this is where most nopales recipes live. You will find nopalitos tucked into tacos and scrambled into eggs at breakfast. You can also pile the cold strips over salads with tomato, onion, and cilantro. Street vendors grill whole pads over charcoal and fold them into cheese-filled tortillas. The flavor sits somewhere between green beans and okra, with a bright, lemony tang. A fast sear on a hot, dry comal is the trick. The heat cooks off the slick sap and leaves the strips crisp instead of slimy.
The tunas fruit carries the sweet half of the plant. You eat tunas fresh and cold, peeled and sliced, seeds and all. The pulp becomes agua fresca, a light drink blended with water and a spoon of sugar. You can also simmer the fruit into jam, boil it into chewy candy, and press it for a bright magenta juice. One old favorite is queso de tuna, a dark candy paste cooked down from the fruit and sliced like fudge. Flavor shifts by color. Some tunas taste like watermelon, while the darker ones lean closer to sweet fig or pear.
Prickly pear has fed and healed people across Mexico for thousands of years. Long before it reached the plate, the pads served as folk medicine for burns, wounds, and blood sugar. The cactus also hosts cochineal, the tiny insect that once gave the world its most prized red dye. That deep history put the plant at the center of the Mexican flag. There, an eagle perches on a nopal with a snake in its beak. Few foods carry that much weight, working as vegetable, fruit, drink, medicine, and pigment at once. That range is what gives nopales mexican cuisine its depth.
Scrape the glochids off with a knife and trim the tough edges, or buy pads sold de-spined at the market.
Simmer the young pads in salted water for about 20 minutes to soften them and rinse away the sticky sap.
Drain the pads, then saute the strips in a hot pan with onion and chili until they turn tender and tangy.
The fruit is even easier to try at home. Peel a few ripe tunas, blend the pulp, and pour it through a strainer to catch the hard seeds. Stir the strained juice with cold water, chill it well, and you get an agua fresca that tastes like the desert in a glass. Try the boiled and sauteed pads first, then the chilled juice. Together they cover both ways Mexicans have used this cactus for generations.
Read the full article: Prickly Pear Cactus: Uses, Benefits, Care
