Xoconostle Salsa & Margaritas

Post 1 of 4 on ingredients from Houston’s less known (more local?) Tex-Mex sides: Xoconostle, Nopales, Guajes, Culantro. All of which grow in India as well, in some form or other, thanks to centuries of botanical exchanges, colonial and other, and now have local stories to tell from either end of this wide world.

When the summer gave us a sudden, short, and wholly surprising return to Houston, we found ourselves in an old part of the new world. Roads and sights returned to us as though we’d never been a day apart. People had aged, that purple signpost to the Sam Houston Tollway was now so-faded and shabby-looking, a good many favorite eateries had closed, victims of the pandemic or the Korean food take-over, I’m not sure–but the Crape Myrtles were still in full and resplendent bloom, the whoosh-whoosh of the highways and the pulsating chirpings of cicadas all still as we’d left them, the white noise of rush hour and the sound of summer afternoons both. Everything had changed, everything had stayed the same.

Most especially Fiesta, which had always felt much more like a local market than an American grocery, and which had always supplied us with ingredients common to both Indian and Mexican cookery (chillies! cilantro!) but just as much had opened us out to allied possibilities: poblanos, anchos, nopales, tunas verdes, and xoconostle.

Xoconostle (pronounced choko-nose-leh) is a sour prickly pear variety, botanically identified as Opuntia matudae. Or, to be more precise, Opuntia matudae is the most commercially important species of cactus referred to as ‘xoconostle’–the term refers to a good many sour prickly pears, including Opuntia joconostle (for example) which is also referred to as ‘xoconostle,’ but is not usually the xoconostle, which is what you see represented in this post [You can see O. Matudae and O. Xoconostle specifically distinguished here]. It’s at times a confusing world of cacti!

What’s not confusing is taste. The name “xococ” comes from the Nahuatl meaning “sour” which differentiates it from other sweeter Opuntia species like Opuntia ficus-indica which are at times just called “cactus pears” or tunas verdes. Xoconostle is sometimes called tuna agria. It is one of the few sources of betalain, a phytonutrient responsible for the deep red color of the pith coating the hard seeds and the red blush on the fruit (also what gives red beets their deep coloration).

Now Opuntia ficus-indica, the prickly pear that produces the stunning red tunas rojas, grows in the more arid regions of India, too. I’ve seen it on a cousin’s farm in Molasur, seen also the use of the fruits to make chutneys and jams in “country kitchens.” Its uses are known, but not widely.

That the prickly pear is here at all owes to the efforts of several researchers, first at the Central Arid Zone Research Institute (CAZRI) in Jodhpur [1970s] and then 30+ germplasm transfers from one Dr. Peter Felker at Texas A&M University-Kingsville and scientists at Nimbkar Agricultural Research Institute at Phalton, India, in 1987 [1]. Opuntia had long before come to Europe in the hands of the Spaniards in the 15-1600s, and made itself well at home in the Mediterranean basin, particularly places like Sicily where it became something of a commercially important crop, providing fresh fruit in the late fall season which traditionally lacked in these. In such areas, Opuntia has “shown its adaptability to intensive and extensive agricultural systems, which are characterized by limited resources” [2], possibly providing impetus for those wishing to introduce such species in other similarly difficult environments with much ‘wasteland and problematic soil’: Western Maharashtra, Kachchh-Bhuj in Gujarat, parts of Rajasthan. Opuntia’s ability to tolerate poor-water conditions or rather its relative efficiency in converting water to biomass, its multi-purpose uses to humans as food and for livestock as fodder and its utility to various industries (cosmetics, soap, even plywood, adhesives and dyes!) gives it all potential. Near Rajkot is where Sheetal Bhatt reported on it being used as fruit and hedging, and there it is known as Haathla Thor “because its has a shape similar to our palm” (“Haath”=palm). The fruit itself is findla, and is widely consumed in the region and being sold in farmers’ markets with all usual health benefits trotted out–all of which is especially interesting given that the cacti were introduced and pushed only from the 1970s onwards. Agro-scientists continue to push for its cultivation as we see from this 2018 Technical Bulletin devoted to “Cactus Pear Cultivation and Uses.”

I didn’t find tunas rojas in Houston, but I did find the two cactus pear varieties you see below:

We found these fruits in Houston, at the Fiesta on S. Main, close to what used to be out street near the Texas Medical Center. Tunas verdes became a breakfast fruit salad of the sort you see above. From it, I learned to chew all over again: the seeds in these are impossible to crunch unless you wish to risk chipping a tooth, so the way to consume them is simply to suck off the pulp and swallow. Everyone says they’re “edible” but I learned from this that that doesn’t mean you’re really ingesting any value from them–they’re just passing through.

At another Fiesta by the Beltway, close to what now became home in Houston, I found xoconostle with the thick yellow-ish mesocarp, and a pink core with all those same ingestible-but-inedible seeds embedded. It was time to make salsa and then a margarita to go with.

A white onion, garlic, and some ancho chillies went onto a skillet alongside the xoconostle fruits. A drizzle of oil to keep it all from burning.

Xoconostle chars lightly and cooks quickly. We cut it in halves and scooped out the pulp–unlike tunas verdes, whose outer skin is thin and can simply be peeled off, xoconostle takes scooping in two steps: the beautifully pink seedy centers first (save them to juice for margaritas), and then the juicy mesocarp itself which at this point is beautifully reminiscent of translucent apricots.

Transfer those to a blender jar along with the onions, garlic, anchos, plus salt and (if you have it) just a touch of agave nectar or syrup or some comparable sweetener. It’s all you need for a perfectly balanced tangy piquant salsa that is the perfect accompaniment to … well, just about everything.

Those seedy pink centers though were not to be wasted. There was plenty of color and taste in them yet to make xoconostle margaritas, with smoky mezcal in place of tequila of course. Or simply agua frescas, thinned with water to almost complete lightness.

It was all smoky and delicious and a taste of Houston Tex-Mex you’ll not find anywhere unless you conjure it yourself.

NOTES

[1] Gurbachan Singh, “General Review of Opuntias in India.” J. PACD/Journal of the Professional Association for Cactus Development, no. 5, 2013, pp. 30-46.

[2] Giuseppe Barbera, et al. “Past and Present Role of the Indian-Fig Prickly-Pear (Opuntia Ficus-Indica (L.) Miller, Cactaceae) in the Agriculture of Sicily.” Economic Botany, vol. 46, no. 1, 1992, pp. 10–20. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/4255403. Accessed 17 Aug. 2023.

[3] GALLEGOS-VÁZQUEZ, Clemente et al. “Morphological diversity of xoconostles (Opuntia spp.) or acidic cactus pears: a Mexican contribution to functional foods.” Fruits 67, 2012, pp. 109-120.