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Ensalada de Napoles Asados
I have been on a traditional Mexican food kick for the last few months after purchasing Rick Bayless’s Mexican Kitchen. Traditional Mexican is not the fare you’re used to from the queso-drenched dishes at El Whatevero, so it has been a culinary adventure. This weekend was the most adventurous yet, as I decided it was time to whip up some ensalada de napoles asados: roasted cactus salad.
Napoles, cactus paddles, are actually a fairly mild green vegetable. They are often available in small quantities at the farmer’s market, and are dirt cheap. (The five paddles above cost $0.90 for not quite two pounds.) Rick Bayless tells that the paddles of all prickly pear varieties are edible.
Preparing the cactus is a little tricky. The first step is to cut the edges off, which is easy since the paddles are quite tender. Getting the spines off is harder. And time consuming. I tried scraping with a paring knife with some success, but I still had to pick off a few stragglers. The cactus also gets a bit sticky when you start to cut into it, so it’s important to make sure you keep the spines you’ve removed away from the paddles.
After trimming and de-spining, you cut the cactus into little squares, toss it with a little olive oil and salt, and spread it out a baking sheet.
Into the oven it goes at 375 for about 20 minutes.
As it cooks, it seeps a thick liquid, like okra, which (mostly) evaporates as it cooks. Really, it behaves (and tastes like) a pretty standard green vegetable. With the cactus out of the oven, the interesting part is over.
The remainder of the salad is essentially a chunky tomato salsa with fresh serrano peppers, white onion, garlic, cilantro, and lime juice.
The cactus then gets mixed into salsa.
The salad actually came out very spicy, though, that was more of a function of my heavy hand with the serrano peppers than anything else. The flavor mellowed out after a couple days in the fridge, though. You can serve it as a salad, plain or on a bed of lettuce. I poached a chicken and served chicken tacos on corn tortilla with the cactus salad a filling (and a pitcher of sangria made with all fresh citrus).
While I don’t think cactus is going to be part of my normal repertoire, it made for an interesting and memorable meal.
Edit: Maura covers the rest of our culinary adventures on a weekend fit for a food blogger.
5.29.07 | 10pm | 1 Comment