Nopales, or cactus pads (leaves), have been at the top of my Wanted Foods List for awhile. They are right above cooking with banana leaves. They always have fresh nopales at Suvianda for super cheap and they carry jars of nopalitos as well. As far as I understand, diced and cooked nopales are called nopalitos (the -ito again...)
I talked to some of the cooks at work and they recommended sauteing nopales, I tried a couple of ways of cooking them today. I boiled and sauteed some cleaned, de-thorned, and chopped nopales. I made a chipotle pepper sauce by putting 2 chipotle peppers, fresh red pepper, garlic, salt, pepper, and tomato in the food processor. Then I served them with black beans and sauteed red peppers and onions and avocado.
After reading about nopales a little bit, I think they are a fairly neutral food that people traditionally pair with more flavorful food, like spicy chipotle sauce.
The texture is a lot like a sauteed green bell pepper but they are a little bit sour.
The thorns made me a little nervous, but they keep tongs near the nopales in the grocery store and I just had to kind of knock and scrape the thorns off with a big knife. The leaves ooze a mucous type of liquid after they've been cut.
So they mystery is gone, nopales are not too difficult to work with. I might pair them with some eggs someday (the popular juevos con nopales), but I can't eat eggs right now because I'm so sick of them from Easter weekend.
Nutritionally, the nopales are pretty good for you. They have dietary fiber, a low glycemic index, low carbs, and a good amount of Vitamin A and C and minerals.
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