Trevor came home today with a prickly pear paddle (say that 3 times fast). No, he didn't rip it off a cactus and de-spine it with his bare hands...Grammy picked it up at some little mercado. I found a recipe online that seemed easy enough - basically scrambled eggs with chopped cactus, tomato and cilantro. Since we didn't happen to have any tomato or cilantro on hand, we went for the bare bones version - plain old scrambled eggs with a few pieces of cactus thrown in.
Preparing the thing was rather labor intensive....cut out all the eyes (that sounds a bit Oedipal or Shakespearean), slice off the outer edges, boil for 10 minutes, then chop it up and saute. Trevor really liked the saute part, since the cactus began to ooze out a sticky slime as it cooked. It seemed to me like the poor plant was trying to defend itself against predators.
We added the eggs (after Trevi cracked them all perfectly!), and our little Iron Chef began the business of scrambling.
In the end, it was just like eating scrambled eggs with mushy, flavorless green pepper mixed in. I can certainly see the appeal if you were a desert dweller with few alimentary options, but all in all, prickly pear just didn't do it for me. For our cactus-obsessed boy, however, huevos con nopalitos was an absolute delicacy.
If only spinach grew in the desert and was covered with spines......
Preparing the thing was rather labor intensive....cut out all the eyes (that sounds a bit Oedipal or Shakespearean), slice off the outer edges, boil for 10 minutes, then chop it up and saute. Trevor really liked the saute part, since the cactus began to ooze out a sticky slime as it cooked. It seemed to me like the poor plant was trying to defend itself against predators.
We added the eggs (after Trevi cracked them all perfectly!), and our little Iron Chef began the business of scrambling.
In the end, it was just like eating scrambled eggs with mushy, flavorless green pepper mixed in. I can certainly see the appeal if you were a desert dweller with few alimentary options, but all in all, prickly pear just didn't do it for me. For our cactus-obsessed boy, however, huevos con nopalitos was an absolute delicacy.
If only spinach grew in the desert and was covered with spines......
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