This recipe reminds me of a friend of mine. He wanted to have a wife schooled in ‘The Old Ways’, so he went down to Mexico and got himself a wife from his parent’s native village and brought her here to The States. Ten years ago she knew no English…. now she can converse pretty well in both languages. I went by their house one day, and they’d just settled down to a big bowl of sauteed cactus much like this recipe.
He had the biggest smile on his face when he saw me come in the door… he was so happy and proud to show me that his wife knew all about eating cactus, made him cactus meals nearly daily, and even cared enough to serve the meals in their clear bowls, so you could see all the bright colors of the various ingredients showing from all directions.
Yes, this meal will make a brilliant display of greens, whites and reds and yellows.
Sautéed Edible Cactus, Peppers, and Corn
Recipe Summary
Preparation time: 20 minutes
Number of servings: 4
Ingredients
1 large red bell pepper
1 large green bell pepper
1 large onion
1 Tbsp trans-fat free butter
4 small ears of small summer corn
1/2 lb fresh, firm edible cactus, with spines removed, cut in 1/4- to 1/2-inch diced pieces
finely minced cilantro or parsley
Directions
Halve peppers; then remove seeds and stems. Cut into 1/4- to 1/2-inch squares. Cut onions the same size. Cook peppers and corn in butter in a heavy pan over moderate heat until just softened.
Remove husks and silk from corn; then cut from cob. Add edible cactus and corn to peppers and onion; stir over high heat until vegetables are cooked through, but firm-tender, about 5 minutes.
Sprinkle with herbs and serve hot.
Sautéed Edible Cactus, Peppers, and Corn
Serving Size 1/4 of recipe
Amount Per Serving
Calories 180 Calories from Fat 35
% Daily Value (DV)*
Total Fat 4g
6%
Saturated Fat 2g
10%
Cholesterol 10mg
3%
Sodium 30mg
1%
TotalCarbohydrates 31g
10%
Dietary Fiber 4g
16%
Sugars 8g
Protein 5g
Vitamin A
70%
Vitamin C
260%
Calcium
10%
Iron
8%
* Percent Daily Values are based on a 2,000-calorie diet.
You can find the original recipe with the ‘Diabetic Exchanges’ and the nutrients at Walgreens.
I substitute olive oil for the butter… I’m an olive oil fanatic.
You can see how totally healthy this meal is…. and it is the common meal that peoples in the Americas would have eaten a thousand years ago. The bodies of the Native Americans were adapted to this low-fat high-nutrition diet…. it is the diet that all peoples should return to…. it is much healthier, and dang, it just plain tastes great!
In Spanish, when you add the suffix ‘itas’ or ‘itos’, it designates something small…. perhaps reduced in size some way. Miguel might have a son everyone would call Miguelito…. Micky we might say in English.
Tunas refers to the cactus fruits…. tunitas would be small, or immature tunas.
There are some species that never really develop the fruit properly to make a nice sweet cactus fruit like so many others do. We have a species like that, we raise it only for the leaves, and break the small fruits off so they don’t suck moisture and nutrients to grow when we don’t get anything from them anyways. But there are ways to pickle or otherwise prepare those fruits… they are really good when picked before bloom opening… and can have a really nice taste.
Don’t you just love the taste of simple pleasurable food?
There’s no need for anything fancy with food…. simple is good.
But still, even simple can require some blending of ingredients….
Foods that complement one another can meld into a satisfying stew of blended happiness.
We try to add a little cactus into ‘this and that’ as we cook. It’s really surprising how the addition of just a little cactus can make a dish ‘POP’ in a new way. Even though we grow the plants, and like them, and appreciate cactus a quite a bit…. I am still blown away when I try it in a new way… or see it anew in an old dish.
It gets warm here in the daytime…. and cold at night. It is common for us to have temps in the nineties in the daytime, and down into the forties at night. We don’t often cook a regular meal in the evening…. the house is just too darn hot (no A/C). So when we cook, it is often early in the morning to heat the house and cook with the same energy, or it is late in the evening…. when we can stand having the oven on for a bit.
We found some pork at the store on sale the other day…. we browned it yesterday morning with a half pound of bacon, then added oil and water, and a diced onion…. and covered it. We let it sit and bubble slowly for a couple of hours…. (it was 49 degrees outside), then I added a couple of diced cactus leaves, and a big yellow zucchini from the garden… some spices… oregano, peppers, salt, garlic powder (our garlic is still in the ground)….. and let it all bubble for a half hour additional.
A cactus stew... yum yum good!
That was a great meal! So very tasty…. we served the meaty vegetable-laden broth over freshly cooked ‘Jasmine’ rice.
I think it cost us about seventy five cents per bowl… because we only had to buy the rice and meat…. and the small amounts of spices.
Now we can ‘nuke’ the leftovers in the microwave, giving us another meal or two without having to consume a lot of energy.
‘Chapter 80′
~Tao teh Ching~
I see a small country of small population.
A simple folk, who even if highly skilled work simply and easily.
Tools are seldom used.
They do not bother to invent time-saving appliances.
They would dearly love life,
and would take care to avoid death.
Since they would love their homes and land,
they would not care to wander.
Even with their horses, boats and carts,
they do not wish to travel about.
Though they may have armor and weapons,
these are kept out of sight.
These people would return to simple techniques for record keeping.
Their food would be tasty but simple;
their clothing would be unpretentious.
They would be content with their simple homes,
and the simple pleasures and customs of a simple people.
And even though there might be
a neighboring land within sight,
so that the crowing of roosters
and the barking of dogs can be heard from it;
these people will have lived their entire life
without ever having gone to that country.
Going through all the cactus videos I’ve collected on YouTube, I realized I should share this list.
We have about a dozen of the best videos I’ve found, videos that will show you how to select and prepare cactus for eating, as well as a few recipe videos.
Here’s some photos of the cactus fruits we grow. The photos were taken last year.
We had a commercial processor who bought all we sold…. unfortunately, they have gone out of business. We enjoyed providing them with cactus fruits, and hope they will be able to reconstitute and again resume business.
Meanwhile, this summer and fall and winter we will likely have cactus fruits for sale to the public. we prefer selling to a wholesaler who does not want them cleaned…. it’s best to clean them at the end destination… but we can’t send them spiny to the general public… so we’ll clean these to be free from glochids and spines.
We’ll be looking for a suitable sized container…. these have to be in a leak-free plastic container… and packed again into a larger box. We’ll probably have several options in sizing and combining them with cactus leaves. When we start those sales, we’ll announce it here and in the newsletter.
Here’s a video we made of how to peel a cactus fruit.
Most cactus varieties have spines that will cause some harm if you are not careful.
This video shows how to clean those type pads off with a knife.
I’ve been out in cactus fields and seen the ladies from Mexico, with a child strapped to their back in a shawl… with a huge butcher knife in hand, cutting and cleaning cactus leaves with a dexterity that is astounding.
Our most popular variety the Nopalea grande is nearly spineless…. one need not do all the work seen here.
Recipe for a “nopalitos” salad, as show on the show Let’s Cook Together, on 3ABN in 2006
I use about the same recipe myself…. I use a lot of onion, some garlic, and more cilantro, some cumen, and corn and cooked black beans also. I don’t use lemon since our cactus already has a lemony tang to it.
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The folks in this video harvest the same type cactus we do… Nopalea grande. We also use similar thick rubbery gloves. Leather gloves are not what to use.
We put ours into five gallon buckets also, to take them to the packing shed…. but our buckets are clean.
