A few weeks ago while walking Molly I noticed fruit developing on the Prickly Pear and thought about how one might go about eating them. Later that evening I Googled “Prickly Pear” and found that I didn’t need to wait until the fruit ripened to use the cactus for food.
The cactus pads, called Nopales in Spanish, can be prepared in several ways and I found, in my search, dozens of recipes. The one that interested me the most was scrambled eggs with Nopales. The term for the prepared pad that is cleaned, spines removed and sliced is “Nopalitos”.
A search on You Tube found several movies showing the proper way to harvest, clean and prepare Nopales. After watching, I felt confident that I knew what I was doing. Big surprise, It’s not always as easy as it looks. I noticed that the Prickly Pear around my house was different from what I saw in the videos. Mine grew closer to the ground and had many more spines. Closer to the ground-no big deal. Many more spines-a problem. I under estimated the ability of the spines to penetrate my leather gloves (In the future I will have gloves with thicker leather) and that required the use of tweezers to remove them from my fingers. Ouch!
This morning I sliced up the Nopales (two small pads cleaned) and sautéed them in butter. I then added two eggs beaten with a bit of milk and a hand full of grated cheddar cheese. Cooking until the eggs firmed up and browned slightly I served with my favorite green chilly salsa. Yum!
The Nopalitos added an earthy taste to the eggs that I enjoyed very much. Well worth the effort of preparing (and tweezing).
Next time I have Nopales I think I’ll grill them.
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