Thai Green Papaya Salad

Today our presentation is a familiar Thai salad,  Thai green papaya salad or Spicy fresh papaya salad (Som Tam Ma-la-kor, called in Thai) Also make for a perfect match with steamed sticky rice and fried chicken. Original from Northeast of Thailand.  It takes me a long time to get fresh green papaya.  Serve plain or make a perfect match with steamed sticky rice and fried chicken.

Ingredients (serve 1 portion)

1 cup  fresh green papaya, peeled, wash and chop into thin slices (a tradition way and more crispy than use a grater)

1/4 cup long beans, cut 1 inch estimated

1 tomato, slice wedge

1-5  Thai chili

5-6 Dried shrimps

1/4 cup Roasted peanuts (today I use roasted cashew nuts)

1 Tbsp Palm sugar, I use a grater to grate palm sugar so it will dissolve easy when pound, this is option

0.5 – 1 Tbsp of fish sauce, 0.5 Tbsp of lime juice, 0.5 Tbsp of tamarind juice, (Tamarind juice is an option that you can only use 1 Tbsp of lime juice is fine)

1 segment of garlic, peel

equipment necessary: Mortar and Pestle

Preparation

1. Preparation fresh ingredients and dry ingredients.

2. Making dressing by mortar, add chili, garlic, 1 Tbsp of palm sugar, dry shrimps pound until combine and palm sugar dissolve. Add 1/2 tbsp of lime juice and 1/2 tbsp of tamarind juice, 0.5 – 1 tbsp of fish sauce. (this taste is likely sour-sweet and salt) The flavour is upon to your desire to add.

One mortar I have is small and it is granite so we will make the dressing and place in a mixing bowl, then add crush long bean and tomato, crush peanuts and add chopped papaya last then toss gently all over before transfer to a serving plate.

Tamarind juice is an option but to use only lime juice is fine.   I like the flavor of Tamarind  and it adds a bit of colour and can be less expensive than lime.

A nice traditional meal would be green papaya salad with fried chicken and steamed sticky rice.

Green papaya salad serve with fried chicken and steamed sticky rice

Briefly a simple recipe for today is Thai style fried chicken. Marinate the  chicken (Today we use chicken wing) with sea salt, red curry paste, light soy sauce, Thai herbs today we add both kaffir limes leaves and lemon grass (slices), black pepper. Marinated half to two-hour. Dust with little flour before deep-fried until chicken cooked and golden brown by control the heat not high.

Mean while we can do steam sticky rice for half an hour and deep fry chicken.

Preparation for a serving plate. Fried chicken serve with Thai chili sauce.

Then do som tam a la minute just before serve.