Annotations for Speaker: Susana Trilling

Susana Trilling is a chef and former restaurateur from the U.S. now living in Oaxaca, Mexico.

Let's just do the ensalada nopal.

Okay so you take a cactus and you clean the spines off.

And when you have the whole petals, you wash them well.

And then you grill them in a cast iron frying pan or on a griddle or a comal.

And then you cut them up in little pieces, cut up some tomato, some green onions, some cilantro.

And then you roast some garlic and chop that up fine.

You mix that all together.

And then in a molcajete, you grind up some star anise, maybe one star, and then about half a cup of vinegar, half a cup of olive oil, and the juice of two limes.

And you mix that in and then you cut up some avocado and you fold that in.

And that's called ensalada de nopal asado. It's really good for you.

I serve them on totopos or like tortillas that are baked in the oven with a little bit of queso fresco on top.

So it's kind of like crunchy, slimy and salty. [Laughter]

But it's a wonderful botana and it's really, really good for you.

The nopal is excellent for the salud.