Som Tam – Thai Green Papaya Salad
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Introduction
Creating a Thai feast? Why not start with this refreshing salad From award winning Thai restaurant Saba in Dublin 2. You can get this recipe and many more in Saba: The Cookbook
Ingredients
- 300g green papaya, grated
- 4 garlic cloves
- 3 bird’s eye chillies
- 1 tbsp unsalted, roasted peanuts
- 3 cherry tomatoes, halved
- 80g string beans, cut 4cm
- 2 tbsp fish sauce
- 20g palm sugar
- 2 tbsp lime juice
- 50g carrots, grated
- 20g dried shrimps
- 2 tbsp unsalted, roasted, peanuts, crushed, to garnish
- 5g dried shrimp to garnish
Method
- 1. Peel the papaya and rinse under running water. Halve, remove the seeds and grate it roughly. Soak in cold water for 5 minutes – this makes it very crunchy and delicious.
- 2. Using a big pestle and mortar, pound the garlic cloves, bird’s eye chillies and roasted peanuts to a rough purée. Then add the cherry tomatoes and string beans and pound again but don’t pound the beans and tomatoes too finely. Season with fish sauce, palm sugar and lime juice. Now mix together with the papaya, carrots and dried shrimp and continue pounding until well mixed but still rough.
- 3. You can modify the spiciness by increasing or decreasing the amount of bird’s eye chillies or by de-seeding the chillies.
- 4. Garnish with a little dried shrimp and roasted peanuts and serve at room temperature.
- 5. For a vegetarian option just omit the dried shrimps and use soy sauce instead of fish sauce.
