Ensalada de Nopales -Cactus Salad
This Mexican cactus salad is tangy, tart, and sweet... all at the same time!
The language, songs, symbols, rituals, the environment, and food habits are all that give character and form a culture. The cactus is a part of México, from their songs to their symbols, passing and stopping, obviously, in their food, the pride of our identity.
The eagle on our national emblem rests precisely on a cactus (or as we call it in Mexico- nopal).
What's more, in addition to the health benefits of cactus are its fruits, whether red, green, or yellow juicy tunas and the “Xoconoxtle” (sour prickly pear).
Even the insect “cochinilla” (Dactylopius coccus), a cactus pest, is highly prized for its natural dye for food and cosmetics, besides giving beautiful purple color to the textiles. This product was part of the goods that were sent to the East via the sea route of the Nao of China.
I don’t know of any other vegetables so accessible, frequent, combined, and versatile as the cactus.
It can be used in so many different ways! As a simple salad like today´s recipe or as part of other dishes.
It can also be accompanied by grilled meats, tacos, moles, soups, bread, cakes, cookies, tamales, drinks, jams, fruit pastes, ice cream...uff! So many different ways!. Here the recipe.
LIST OF INGREDIENTS
Nopales
Shredded Oaxaca cheese or muenster cheese
Tomatoes
Red onions
Serrano pepper or green pepperoni(seeds removed if you do not want it spicy)
Salt to taste
Cilantro/coriander
Olive oil
COOK THE NOPALES
Cut the cactus across as thin as possible and put it in boiling water. There are countless ways to cook nopales to remove the slime produced when you are cutting them and even imprint an artificial green. I prefer the simplest.
Put them in water to a boil, making sure that when the foam begins to rise.
Turn off the heat and strain the nopales.
Next, add clean water to the pot and put it again to cook for 6 minutes in salted water. Let them cool.
If you cannot find fresh Nopales, you can used the ones in Salmuera (pickeld) ready to use, no need to cook them.
THE OTHER VEGETABLES
Chop in small cubes the tomatoes, onions and chiles.
Chop fine the cilantro but not to much
Mixed everything in a bowl and at he end the salt and just a bit of olive oil.
