Opuntia/Nopal verdura

[Ausländer]

Do you like Opuntia (AKA Nopal verdura)?
Not the fruit of the prickle pear cactus, but the cladodes themselves.
Do you eat them?
In Italy you cannot find in retail or grocery shops, but luckyly the old lady beside our house has a large Opuntia plant and from time to time I take a cladode and I eat it, for me it is really good

[Fireball]

I live in southern California, and those are readily available in supermarkets. I've never eaten any though. Maybe I'll try it sometime.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Do you like Opuntia (AKA Nopal verdura)?
Not the fruit of the prickle pear cactus, but the cladodes themselves.
Do you eat them?
In Italy you cannot find in retail or grocery shops, but luckyly the old lady beside our house has a large Opuntia plant and from time to time I take a cladode and I eat it, for me it is really good

In Sicily the prickly pear cactus is used for fencing.

[Ausländer]

I live in southern California, and those are readily available in supermarkets. I've never eaten any though. Maybe I'll try it sometime.

Make a smoothie half cucumber, half opuntia, fresh ginger, fresh mint and fresh chilli. If you want you can add also some rhum or vodka to make it even better...

[Ausländer]

In Sicily the prickly pear cactus is used for fencing.

I know it very well...
They tried it also in Australia but the continent down under has a very unforgiving nature and the situation spiralled quickly out of control...
In Mexico they use it also for making biogas and biomethane with great success.

[Mark]

I have a large opuntia but I've never eaten either the leaves or fruits. I think I'll look for a recipe to try it out.

[Dom]

I have a large opuntia but I've never eaten either the leaves or fruits.  I think I'll look for a recipe to try it out.

I love eating the leaves. Yum!

[Little Lunch]

I never knew about the moth that eats the cactus til now.
There still is a shitload of cactus here though.
I'm on the edge of town and I could go for a minute walk and find one in the dark.
Probably the only plant I could purposefully find in the dark. :-)

[Ausländer]

I never knew about the moth that eats the cactus til now.
There still is a shitload of cactus here though.
I'm on the edge of town and I could go for a minute walk and find one in the dark.
Probably the only plant I could purposefully find in the dark. :-)

where do you live?

[Little Lunch]

Toowoomba, QLD.

[Little Lunch]

One of the sites where they honour the moth is just down the road in Dalby.

[Mark]

I have a large opuntia but I've never eaten either the leaves or fruits.  I think I'll look for a recipe to try it out.

I love eating the leaves. Yum!

So I watched a couple youtube videos.  Seems they only use ones with very thin leaves and harvest the young leaves before they completely harden.  One opuntia I have has thick, oblong leaves and the other has round and flattened leaves but they about a foot in diameter and quite thick.  It seems like these aren't going to be ideal.  I might try buying some frozen.

[Ausländer]

Yes, you need ideally cladodes <4 months old, after that they start to get thicker skin and more lignin. You can anyway despine them and remove the outer skin inserting a sharp blande between the skin and the pulp.
Yesterday for example I used older leaves to whom I removed the skin andthey worked out very well

[brewerb]

Had the pear candy and have eaten the leaf as a side with carnitas tacos. 

Not a big fan of either.

Prefer San Pedro if you know what I mean.

[Cheerful Charlie]

I am in a Hispanic neighborhood and these are readily available in all local grocery stores. I cannot say I really like them that much. One thing I miss that I cannot get withing 25 miles of me is candied ginger. Not part of Hispanic cuisine it seems.