Name: Green Papaya Salad
Yield: Serves 2 or 4 as a Side Dish
Ingredients: Chinese cabbage, quartered, to serve; 1 tablespoon tamarind water (see below); 2 tablespoons fish sauce; 2 tablespoons palm or caster sugar; 1 tablespoon lime juice; 225 g/8 oz green papaya, shredded; 5 bird’s-eye chillies; steamed Thai rice, to serve; 1 heaped teaspoon roasted peanuts, crushed; 2 tablespoons dried prawns (optional); 4 cherry tomatoes, quartered; 5 green beans, sliced into 1 cm/½ inch lengths; 3 clove garlic, peeled sea salt

Preparation info

Serves
2 or 4
as a Side Dish

Difficulty
Easy

Appears in

Let's Eat

By Tom Parker Bowles

Published 2013

About

I’ll never forget my first bite. I was 18, greener than a young papaya, and in Bangkok for the first time. Having just spent 6 months in the Indian wilderness, arriving in the garish, neon-soaked Thai capital was like that moment where Dorothy arrives in Oz, and the screen changes from mono-chrome to glorious Technicolor. Anyway, the first street-food vendor I found (or plucked up the courage to approach) was selling a sort of greeny-white salad in a bag. I did a lot of pointing and nodding