Thai green Papaya salad (Som Tam) a combination of shredded green papaya, fresh vegetables, herbs and a spicy tangy Thai dressing, topped with crunchy roasted peanuts.
It is the perfect crispy, fresh, healthy and delicious salad for a hot summers day or the ideal side dish to accompany and offset grilled fish or spicy pork.
So what is a green papaya…. well we all know papaya as a delicious orange coloured juicy fruit with black seeds, a green papaya simply said is the unripe version. Instead the pips are white, the flesh off-white and firm and the taste, neither sweet nor sour, just perfectly neutral. A blank canvas ready for creation. And a green papaya salad is exactly that, an amazingly simple creation. It is the combination of textures, crunchy and silky, the flavours, sweet, sour, salty and big on spice. So if you aren’t lucky enough to have a papaya plant growing in your garden, scour the markets to find a rock hard fruit, I find that Asian supermarkets are really the best place to find the perfect unripened papaya, they understand the criteria and sell the best unripened fruit, I found mine at New Asian Spice Supermarket – 186 Main Rd, Sea Point, Cape Town.
Thai Green Papaya Salad Recipe
Makes enough for: 4-6 people
75ml freshly squeezed lime juice
45ml shaved palm sugar, you could always replace this with light brown sugar if needs be
45ml good quality fish sauce
3 crushed garlic cloves, I like to use my pestle and mortar to crush them.
2 red birds eye chillies, finely sliced (you can add more or less depending on how spicy you like it.)
1 medium sized, firm unripe papaya, peeled, halved and seeded and then thinly sliced with a mandoline or a julienne peeler.
1/3 of a red cabbage thinly sliced with a mandoline
1 medium size carrot, peeled and thinly sliced with a julienne peeler
a generous handful of french green beans, top and tailed and then cut into pieces about 5 cm’s in length
8 cherry tomatoes, first prize is green ones, but red will do just as well, halved
1 medium sized shallot finely sliced
generous bunch of coriander, coarsely chopped.
generous bunch of Thai basil, roughly torn, if you can’t find Thai basil, ordinary basil will do.
1/4 cup of roasted peanuts, coarsely chopped or if you prefer, use cashew nuts.
Method:
Combine the lime juice, palm sugar, fish sauce, garlic and chillies in a small bowl and mix well, until the sugar has dissolved.
In a separate bowl mix together the papaya, cabbage, sliced carrot, green beans, cherry tomatoes, shallot, coriander and Thai basil. Pour over the dressing and mix well, plate in a bowl or salad platter, garnish with chopped nuts and fresh Thai basil and coriander.