Name: Green papaya and peanut salad (Som" tam" Thai)
Yield: Serves 4
Cuisine: Thai
Ingredients: 5 cloves garlic; 2 large mild red chillies, deseeded and roughly chopped; 4 birdseye chillies, roughly chopped; 1 piled tbsp dried shrimp; pinch of salt; 1-2 tbsp fish sauce; 1 large green papaya, around 300 g peeled, deseeded and shredded; 1 tbsp palm sugar or caster sugar; juice of 2 limes; 4 small tomatoes, halved, deseeded and cut lengthways into eighths; large handful of beansprouts; 4 tbsp toasted crushed peanuts

Preparation info

Serves
4

Difficulty
Easy

Appears in

Food and Travels

By Alastair Hendy

Published 2004

About

Green papaya is unripe papaya, and has white firm flesh and green skin. If you can’t find it, use unripe mango or a firm deseeded cucumber. Never use a regular ripe papaya.

Ingredients

5 cloves garlic
4 birdseye chillies, roughly chopped
2 large mild red chillies, des

Method

Pound together the garlic and chillies with a pinch of salt in a pestle and mortar until crushed and pasty. Roughly pound in the dried shrimp and a small handful of the shredded green papaya, so that it’s crushed but still chunky. Stir in the fish sauce, lime juice and sugar until dissolved. Tip into a bowl, then add the remaining papaya, the tomatoes, beansprouts and about 3 tbsp of the toaste