First Harvest of nopales this year! I love nopales. I love most everything about them. I love to eat them, I love to grow them.
Actually, I love to let them grow themselves. My only job is to harvest diligently. The more you harvest, the more you get. I hear that farther south they can be harvested year round. Not here. My harvest starts in late spring and goes until mid or late summer. It is a long enough harvest season. I get the chance to eat plenty and to preserve plenty, good enough for me.
I do not like to peel them. But I do peel them. I need to, I love to eat them.
Here I am, peeling the spines off, one by one, with a sharp knife that I keep cleaning and honing as I go. I really don’t like to work on nopales with a dull knife.
These pointy things that you see in the photo are soft leaves. As the pad grows and hardens they fall off. The spines are under the leaves. Some are large, and stiff, they look menacing but are not a problem. The little spines, those are the problem. They come in little bundles at the base of the big spines, innocent looking bristles that somehow find their way to my fingers and bite. They are hard to see, hard to pull out and painful. They are the reason peeling nopales is not fun, plus it’s a little tedious, I have to admit. But so worth it!
Tonight after peeling, I sliced the nopales, seasoned them with salt and olive oil and roasted them until dry and slightly browned. Nopales are full of a slimy substance that needs to be cooked out of them. The traditional method is to boil them with a copper coin in the pot, but I prefer to roast them until the slime has completely evaporated. They can also be grilled whole, which is my favorite way to prepare very tender nopales. Roasted or grilled they will have a more intense flavor than boiled.
The rest of the week’s harvest was basically the same as in previous weeks: lettuce, greens, limes, lemons, favas, and more favas, and still many more in the garden. This is turning out to be the year of the fava beans.
For more delicious pictures and stories of harvests, head on over to Daphne’s Dandelions, host of Harvest Monday, and take a look at what other gardeners have been up to this week.
May 3, 2010 at 10:57 am
I don’t believe I have ever eaten cactus leaves. I have gotten some of the spines from an Opuntia in my fingers though! Perhaps I need to consider giving them a try here. I’m always looking to add new edibles to our collection!
May 3, 2010 at 11:20 am
There are cold hardy Opuntia varieties, but I don’t know how well they are for cooking. Apparently you want a variety that has few spines, far apart and not too big. At least that’s what I’ve been told…
May 3, 2010 at 11:00 am
I have seen these plants on the coast, but never thought that they can be eaten. What they taste like?
Thanks for this interesting post!
May 3, 2010 at 11:23 am
I am very bad at describing taste, but I’ll try. To me they taste a bit like a green bean with a tart undertone and hints of artichoke. I like them a lot, but not everyone likes them. If the cook doesn’t take good care of drying out the slimy liquid they contain, some people don’t like the texture. Roasting takes good care of this aspect.
May 3, 2010 at 11:19 am
I have never eaten cactus leaves either…..how interesting. You have a very nice site. This is my first visit and I will be back!
May 3, 2010 at 11:26 am
Thanks for kind compliment.
Nopales are a Mexican specialty. Some times you can find them in the menu of Mexican restaurants that offer very authentic cuisine. Give them a try if you run into them.
May 3, 2010 at 11:25 am
I grew up out west with a lot of prickly pear cactus. I wonder if we should have been out peeling and eating them. Such an interesting harvest.
May 3, 2010 at 11:28 am
They sure are tasty and nutritious! There is a native new England coastal opuntia that might be worth a try. I don’t know how good it is for cooking, though.
May 3, 2010 at 2:25 pm
I didn’t know that you could cook the sliminess out of nopales. I never had nopales that weren’t slimy. Maybe I should give them another chance, if I cook them myself. Do your plants produce good tunas as well?
May 3, 2010 at 6:50 pm
Yes, this plants produce good tunas too, although I am not so fond of tunas because I find them way too sweet for my taste.
Good luck trying the nopales again, I hope they will turn out good to your taste.
May 3, 2010 at 6:55 pm
Cool harvest. I love the look of that vegetable. We have a few prickly pears that grow up here but they don’t grow too vigorously in my experience so I haven’t tried the pads. I’ll have to content myself by watching your harvest.
May 3, 2010 at 7:26 pm
Maybe some time you get the chance to eat at a Mexican restaurant where they offer nopales and then you can try them… Meanwhile, be my guest!
May 3, 2010 at 8:44 pm
Nice harvest, I have had nopales at Mexican restaurants before, but I don’t know how to cook it, thanks for the baking info on getting rid of the slime.
May 3, 2010 at 10:49 pm
In the high desert you have a variety of edible cacti, lucky you! Give them a try some day that you feel like a culinary adventure…
May 4, 2010 at 9:48 pm
Yes, nopales are everywhere in our neck of the woods, some older neighborhoods use them as barrier/divider, I like the tunas, it’s like eating a small watermelon.