Trip to Thailand: Green Papaya Salad Recipe

Today your taste buds land in Isan, Thailand! Isan (or Northeast Region) is the northeast region of Thailand with 19 provinces and one of the poorest Thai regions.

Green papaya salad (“som tam”) is a dish from Isan, the north-eastern region of Thailand, and Laos, the region of southwest Asia (Indochina). This salad, which is made with spices and whose main ingredient is green papaya, is also widely known as “papaya pok pok”: in the past, the girls would stay at home to learn the housework, especially cooking, and the parents of the young men would go under the kitchen window to hear if the pestle was working (pok pok = sound produced by the pestle when making the dish) and this was how they could tell if the girl was lazy or not.

This salad is a real addiction for some Thais! So you can't pass without trying this delicious Green Papaya Salad recipe where you can't miss the fish sauce, palm sugar, lemon juice and chili.

Green Papaya Salad

Difficulty: Easy
Servings: 4-6
Main ingredient: Green papaya

Ingredients for the dressing:

• 1 tablespoon fresh cilantro root (4 roots), rinsed, scraped, and rinsed again
• 1 tablespoon minced peeled fresh ginger
• 1 fresh Thai bird chili, or more to taste
• ½ teaspoon minced garlic
• ½ teaspoon minced shallot
• 2 tablespoons palm or brown sugar, or more to taste
• 1 tablespoon fish sauce, or more to taste
• Juice of 3 limes, or more to taste

For the salad:

• 4 Chinese long beans, trimmed
• 1 cup loosely packed fresh Thai basil leaves
• 1 cup loosely packed fresh Vietnamese mint (rau ram) leaves
• 2 cups julienned peeled green (unripe) papaya
• 2 cups julienned peeled cucumber
• 1 cup julienned peeled green (unripe) mango
• 2 cups julienned peeled ripe mango
• ¾ cup 1/2-inch-thick pineapple batons (size of a lady's pinkie)
• ¾ cup julienned fresh long red chilies, such as Anaheim or Hungarian Wax
• ¾ cup lightly crushed salted roasted peanuts

Preparation method:

• Make the dressing: use a mortar and pestle to pound all the dressing ingredients until smooth, pounding each ingredient thoroughly before adding the next. Taste and add more fish sauce, lime juice, chili, and/or palm sugar if you want. The flavor's up to you.
• Make the salad: heat a grill pan, cast-iron skillet, or grill until very hot. Cut the long beans into a manageable size for your pan, if necessary, then grill the beans well on all sides, about 4 minutes total. Transfer them to a bowl, cover it tightly with plastic wrap, and let them steam for about 10 minutes. Cut the beans into 1/2-inch pieces and return them to the bowl.
• Tear the basil and mint leaves. Toss together the long beans with the papaya, cucumber, mango, pineapple, long red chilies, herbs, and the dressing. If you have a large enough mortar or want to work in batches and take the time to make the salad even better, pound the ingredients with the dressing just to bruise them and further infuse the ingredients with the flavor of the dressing. Transfer the dressed salad to a serving bowl and sprinkle with the crushed peanuts.

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