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The highland salad of the central plateau, nopales asados on a comal with tomato, white onion, cilantro, and serrano, dressed in lime and crowned with queso panela. The salad Mexico eats when the rest of the world eats lettuce.
This is a highland salad. Milpa Alta in the south of Ciudad de México grows the nopales that feed most of the country, and the surrounding states of the central plateau, Estado de México, Hidalgo, Tlaxcala, Morelos, eat them daily. When a family on the meseta says ensalada, they often do not mean lettuce. They mean this.
The defining choice is technique. There are two ways to cook a nopal: boiled, with a copper coin and an onion in the pot to tame the baba, or asados on a dry comal until the surface chars and the paddle goes flexible. The asado method is the highland method. It concentrates the flavor instead of leaching it into water. It is also faster. Boiling gives you a salad that tastes apologetic. Asar gives you a salad that tastes like the plant it came from. Cada estado, su propia cocina, and the cooks of the central plateau settled this argument generations ago.
Queso panela is the right cheese. Firm, mild, slightly squeaky, made to hold its shape against the lime. Queso fresco will work in a pinch, but panela is what the cooks in Toluca and Pachuca reach for. The tomato should be a tomate saladet, ripe but firm, the chile serrano fresh and finely minced, the onion white and never red.
My mother kept a small notebook page on nopales, copied from a woman she met at the Mercado de Sonora. The note in the margin read: "sal antes, no después" (salt before, not after). She meant before the heat, to draw out the baba. That single instruction is the difference between a clean salad and a slimy one. Recetas probadas y garantizadas.
The nopal (Opuntia ficus-indica) is native to Mexico and was domesticated by Mesoamerican peoples at least 9,000 years ago, making it one of the oldest cultivated foods on the continent. The plant appears on the Mexican flag in the founding myth of Tenochtitlan, where the Mexica saw an eagle perched on a nopal devouring a serpent on the site that became modern Ciudad de México. Today the borough of Milpa Alta in the south of the capital produces the overwhelming majority of Mexico's commercial nopal harvest, and the technique of asar nopales on a comal rather than boiling them reflects the pre-Columbian preference for dry-heat cooking that predates the introduction of European boiling pots.
Quantity
8 medium
spines and eyes removed
Quantity
2 teaspoons, divided, plus more to taste
Quantity
2 medium
diced small
Quantity
1/2 medium
finely diced
Quantity
1/2 cup
leaves and tender stems, chopped
Quantity
1 to 2
stemmed and finely minced
Quantity
3 to 4
juiced, about 1/4 cup
Quantity
2 tablespoons
Quantity
1 teaspoon
crumbled between your palms
Quantity
6 ounces
crumbled or diced small
Quantity
1
sliced
Quantity
for serving
warmed
| Ingredient | Quantity |
|---|---|
| nopales (cactus paddles)spines and eyes removed | 8 medium |
| kosher salt | 2 teaspoons, divided, plus more to taste |
| tomates saladet (Roma tomatoes)diced small | 2 medium |
| white onionfinely diced | 1/2 medium |
| fresh cilantroleaves and tender stems, chopped | 1/2 cup |
| fresh chile serranostemmed and finely minced | 1 to 2 |
| limones (Mexican limes)juiced, about 1/4 cup | 3 to 4 |
| extra virgin olive oil | 2 tablespoons |
| dried Mexican oreganocrumbled between your palms | 1 teaspoon |
| queso panelacrumbled or diced small | 6 ounces |
| ripe Hass avocado (optional)sliced | 1 |
| hand-pressed corn tortillas (optional)warmed | for serving |
Lay each paddle flat on a cutting board. Holding it by the thick base, run a sharp knife across the surface at a shallow angle to shave off the spines and the dark eyes where they grow. Flip and repeat on the other side. Trim the woody base and the cracked edges. Rinse under cold water. This is the work that the señoras at the Milpa Alta market do for you in five seconds and that you will do in five minutes the first time. You will get faster.
Score each paddle lightly on both sides with three or four shallow diagonal cuts. Do not cut through. Rub each paddle with a pinch of the salt. The salt draws out the baba, the slimy liquid the cactus releases, before it ever hits the heat. Let them sit on a wire rack or colander for 10 minutes while you prep the rest. You will see the liquid bead up on the surface. That is the point.
Heat a dry comal or heavy cast iron skillet over medium-high. Pat the nopales dry with a kitchen towel. Lay them on the hot comal in a single layer. Cook 4 to 5 minutes per side, pressing down with a spatula, until the surface darkens with char marks, the green deepens, and the paddles go from rigid to flexible. This is the highland method, asados, not boiled. No me vengas con atajos. Boiling gives you slimy nopales and a kitchen full of green water you have to throw out. Asar gives you nopales that taste like nopales.
Transfer the asados to a cutting board and let them cool until you can handle them, about 5 minutes. Stack two or three at a time and cut into 1/2-inch strips, then cross-cut into 1/2-inch squares. Discard any tough trim from the base. You should have about three cups of diced nopales.
In a wide bowl, combine the diced nopales with the tomato, white onion, cilantro, and serrano. Add the lime juice, olive oil, the oregano crushed between your palms, and the remaining teaspoon of salt. Toss with a wooden spoon until everything is glossy and the dressing reaches the bottom of the bowl. Taste. The salad should be bright, herbaceous, and salty enough to wake up the nopal. If it tastes shy, add more lime and salt. Esto no es comida de un solo México, but in the highlands, the seasoning is direct.
Let the salad sit for 10 minutes so the flavors come together. Scatter the crumbled queso panela across the top just before serving. Lay the avocado slices around the edge if using. Serve with warm corn tortillas. This eats as a light comida at midday, as a side to grilled meat, or piled into a tortilla as a taco. Saber cocinar es saber vivir.
1 serving (about 200g)
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