SPOILER ALERT: Don't pass this salad up because you don't have cactus leaves. You can also make it with fresh green beans. And now, on to my story...
Creativity for me is a little like growing grapes for wine: the harder the vines have to work, the better the outcome.
Consider today’s dish. The occasion was a dinner with our gourmet group: four couples who like to experiment with food and cooking techniques, and who also like wine. Which makes them not all that different from many of our other friends.
What this group has that not all the other friends have is one guy who is a relentless organizer. I’ve mentioned him before in a post – he’s the one who got us together in the first place, the one who puts all the courses into a fancy menu format before the dinner, the one who keeps a spreadsheet record of every course in every dinner. And the one who sends cheery email notes out a day or two after each dinner, to say, “So when should we schedule the next gathering?” And since no one has the nerve to tell him to lay off for a month or two, we keep having another dinner. Not a terrible outcome.
When that email arrives, the Kitchen Goddess reacts with undisguised glee and unbounded enthusiasm – no, wait. At this point, the Kitchen Goddess is out of steam. Having just barely recovered from focusing on the last dinner’s designated theme (proposed by whichever couple will be hosting and preparing the entrée) – I can’t get even a little interested in shifting to the next new idea. So I react with my usual level of equanimity.
“We should get out of this group,” I say to my mate. “I don’t have any new ideas. And I like it better when I have total control over the menu.”
“But I thought you liked the last dinner,” he says. “And the people are really fun.”
“I did, and they are,” I sigh. “I’m just not ready to start thinking again.”
Fortunately, there’s probably a month between the “start your engines” email and the announcement of the next theme. And a funny thing happens on the way to the kitchen. All that grousing and mentally stomping my feet dispels the bad energy, so what’s left is acceptance. “Ok, fine,” I say. WTF.
As I start paging through cookbooks and wandering around the internet for inspiration, the process begins to be more interesting. Also, I remember that creative people are at their best when the challenge is greatest. There’s not much creativity needed to cook “anything.” But is there a salad that’s more than baby lettuce with vinaigrette for a fancy French theme? Why yes, there is. And it’s here:
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| Tomato Tarte Tatin |
So what’s next? For our group’s most recent gathering, my assignment was the appetizer portion in a meal with an Interior Mexico theme. For a while, all I could picture was chips and guacamole, or chips and queso. Then I remembered a salad of cactus strips and pico de gallo that a friend served with a meal of enchiladas. The salad had a refreshing crispness with a vaguely citrus flavor. I decided to build on those ingredients and give it a bit more sparkle with sautéed shrimp, and... “¡Dios mío – delicioso!”
A brief note about prickly pear cactus
Low in calories and high in fiber and antioxidants, prickly pear cactus is touted for its antiviral and anti-inflammatory properties. According to the Mayo Clinic, it’s promoted for treating diabetes, high cholesterol, obesity, and even hangovers. There’s some evidence it can decrease blood sugar levels in people with type 2 diabetes.
And it tastes so much like green beans that you can substitute green beans for the cactus strips if you can’t find cactus leaves in your yard or at a local Latino grocer. Or if you can’t be bothered with the cactus leaf prep. Which I understand. Just blanch the green beans in boiling water for 15-30 seconds.
Ensalada de Nopalitos y Camarones (Cactus Salad with Shrimp)
For the cactus paddles, choose new, tender growth – the young, thin paddles that appear in spring and summer. They should be pale to bright green in color and no larger than hand-size (6-7 inches from top to bottom). The thorns on these leaves will be fat and curly and easily knocked off. But you’ll still need to eliminated the nubs of the mature thorns that will be developing underneath. Those nubs must be removed before you can cook or eat the cactus. If you can’t find prickly pear cactus growing wild, try a Latino grocery store. The Kitchen Goddess was fortunate to have many cactus plants growing in her neighborhood.Serves 8.
Ingredients
6-7 young paddles from prickly pear cactus
1-2 tablespoons kosher salt
½ cup shallots, minced
¼-½ cup white wine vinegar
1 pound jumbo shrimp (21-25 per pound), cleaned and deveined
4 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, separated
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1 pint cherry tomatoes, cut into quarters or eighths
1 large avocado, cut into ½-inch dice
1 small jalapeño, seeded and deveined, minced
⅓ cup fresh cilantro, loosely chopped
1 cup frozen corn
⅓ cup fresh lime juice
kosher salt/freshly ground pepper for seasoning
Garnish: tortilla chips
Directions
KitchenGoddess note: Be sure to protect your hands well in this first process: use heavy paper (like grocery bag paper) or heavy leather gardening gloves to hold the paddle with one hand while you cut with the other.
1. Rinse the cactus paddles and lay them flat on a paper towel or cutting board. Using a vegetable peeler, paring knife, or other small, sharp knife, slice the nubs of thorns from the flat parts (rinsing or wiping your blade often to rid it of any small spines sticking to it), then trim ⅛- ¼ inch off the round edges of the paddles (where more nubs are growing).
Once you have all nubs off, slice the thin, flat parts of the paddles into strips about ¼ inch thick, discarding the thick bottom inch of the paddle where it attaches to the rest of the plant.
2. In a mixing bowl, lightly massage the strips of cactus with the kosher salt, then spread them out on a rimmed baking sheet, and refrigerate for an hour. This process will help the cactus strips to weep much of the thick, clear sap inside.
3. While the cactus strips are weeping, soak the minced shallots in a small bowl with white wine vinegar (or champagne vinegar) to cover. Set aside.
4. Slice the shrimp into bite-sized pieces (mine were 2-3 pieces per shrimp). In a small skillet, heat the butter and 1 tablespoon of olive oil on medium-high, and sautée the shrimp 5-6 minutes. Transfer the cooked shrimp to a paper towel-lined plate to drain and cool.
5. To assemble the salad, in a large bowl, toss together the shrimp, tomatoes, avocado, jalapeño, frozen corn, cilantro and lime juice. Drain the shallots and add them to the mix. Discard the vinegar.
6. Remove the cactus strips from the fridge and rinse really well. Then, using paper towels, blot them dry really well. Many of them will have broken into smaller pieces; with a knife, cut the remaining strips into pieces 2-3 inches long. Add the cactus strips to the salad with the remaining 3 tablespoons of olive oil and toss well. Add several grinds of fresh pepper, but be sure to taste before you add any salt, as the nopalitos (cactus strips) will add more salt than you’ll expect.
Serve with tortilla chips.
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And if you’re wondering what beverage we served with this delightful salad, here it is: Gingered Pear and Cucumber Margaritas. These were such a hit, I had to promise the other members of our group that I’d include them in this post.
The Kitchen Goddess completely outdid herself on this one. She took a recipe for a Gingered Pear and Cucumber Cooler (click here for the recipe), and substituted tequila for the original gin. Serving the drinks in a martini glass, she rimmed the glasses with lime juice then dipped them in a mix of pink salt, yellow sanding sugar, and cayenne pepper. Simply gorgeous, and dynamite flavors with the salad. It’s not always easy to get the layer of green to drift into the layer of golden yellow like a rainbow, but that doesn’t matter. The other group members fairly swooned, and there wasn’t a drop left in anyone’s glass.
¡Salud!
