If you have never tried Thai or Laos style papaya salad, you’re missing out! This dish is also known as “Somtum”/ ส้มตำ in Thai or “Tum Bak Hung” in Laos, and it’s beloved throughout the nations. Once you are in Thailand or Laos, you can conveniently find Somtum vendors almost everywhere you go. This salad can be whipped up quickly using mortar and pestle (typically wooden or clay mortar) with ingredients like crunchy green papaya, tomatoes, long beans, garlic, chili, palm sugar, tamarind juice, lime, fish sauce and peanuts.
There are multiple variations of “Tum” which means ‘to pound with mortar and pestle’ in Thai. Some would have raw marinated wild rice-field crabs added ( called “Tum Boo” / ตำปู), some with fermented anchovies ( called “Tum Plara”/ ตำปลาร้า), or some with salt-cured duck eggs (“Tum Kai Kem”/ ตำไข่เค็ม), or just about any ingredients your heart desire. Nonetheless, the base ingredients would typically be shredded green papaya, tomatoes, long beans, garlic, chili, palm sugar, tamarind juice, lime, fish sauce and peanuts, which will be shown in this recipe (also known as “Tum Thai” / ตำไทย).
The green papaya salad is refreshing yet savory, and pairs great with grilled meat dishes like grilled chicken (check out my mom’s lemongrass bbq chicken recipe), beef, or pork jowl.
What is green papaya?
Green papaya is the young papaya that has not turn ripe or orange color. The texture is very crunchy and quite bland, which reminds me of radish but without the peppery/ mustard taste. By pounding the green papaya with mortar and pestle, the texture become slightly softer and it helps flavors/ dressing to absorb into the green papaya.
To shred the green papaya into small stalks, the easiest option would be to get a vegetable peeler with wavy blade or if you can’t find the rippled/ wavy one, normal vegetable peeler would do. Another way, which is more traditional, is to hold the peeled papaya in your palm and carefully chop the papaya in repeated motion to make line cuts on the papaya (see video below), then you can use the knife to slice off the top. I do not recommend the second method if it’s your first time trying, because it can be quite dangerous. See videos below for visual :).
Ingredients
- 2 cups Green papaya, peeled and shredded
- 7-8 cherry tomatoes, cut in halves
- 1/4 cups long beans or green beans, cut to 1″ length – optional
- 1-2 cloves garlic
- 1/2 tbsp palm sugar
- 1 tbsp fish sauce
- 1 tbsp tamarind paste (adjust to taste)
- 1-3 Thai chili
- 1 tbsp peanuts, roasted (whole or crushed) – optional
- 1/4 cup dried shrimps
- 1 lime
Preparation
- With your mortar and pestle (wooden, clay, or stone works. Just make sure it is big enough -at least 8″ diameter, otherwise, mix the sauce and muddle everything in a large bowl or ziplock bags), start with pounding garlic, chili to taste, and palm sugar until the sugar has dissolve. Add in long beans pound to crushed pieces (not into a paste).
- Then muddle in cut tomatoes to extract the juice. This helps add the natural umami to the sauce.
- Add in fish sauce, tamarind sauce, lime juice – mix well. You can add in a few lime segments as well.
- Then add in half of the shredded green papaya and carefully pound into the sauce. Once the first half wilted down, add another half and pound salad to mix.
- Now you can add in dried shrimps, peanuts, and other ingredients of choice by gently mixing in with large spoon (i.e. rice noodles, salted egg, etc.)
TIPS:
- Dissolve tamarind syrup with palm sugar and some water before hands if you plan to make this dish often. the tamarind & palm sugar syrup can also be used in other Thai dishes like Pad Thai sauce.
- Add fermented raw crab (ปูดอง) or anchovies (ปลาร้า) for more umami, savory, and a little funky (think adding anchovies into your pizza!).
- Try this cooking method with your local ingredients/ fruit such as mixing the sauce with raw strawberries, young mango, or peaches.
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