Thai papaya salad, also known as som tam, is wildly popular in the entire South East Asia. This salad has a unique flavour combination of sweet, salty, sour and spicy.
WHAT YOU NEED
- 1½ Tbsp palm sugar
- 1 Tbsp fish sauce
- 1 or 2 garlic cloves
- 25g roasted peanuts
- 25g asparagus beans, in 2½ cm
- 1 Tbsp dried shrimps, ground
- 120g green unripe papaya
- 2 Thai chili peppers, seedless
- ½ lime
- 50g cherry tomatoes; or 2 medium large tomatoes, in 6 parts
- Glutinous rice
- Mortar and pestle
HOW TO MAKE IT
Peal the green papaya and slice the fruit in large, thin strips. If you have a mandoline, use the coarse grater. Put the papaya in a large bowl and put aside. Mix the palm sugar with the fish sauce in a bowl until the sugar has dissolved.
Put the garlic in a mortar and pound the garlic until it becomes a paste. Add the roasted peanuts and pound it together with the garlic until smooth. Add the paste to the papaya and mix well. Then add the asparagus beans, dried shrimps and chili peppers, and mix well. Pound the ingredients carefully.
Add the palm sugar mixture and tomatoes, squeeze the lime juice into it and add the lime peal to the mixture. Gently pound all for 1-2 minutes. Once the juice is released, you need to pound even more carefully. Throw away the lime peal and taste the sauce. If needed, add salt and pepper. There needs to be a good balance between sweet, sour, spicy and salty.
Serve together with glutinous rice.