The two most popular types of green papaya salad have either dried shrimp or salted crab. Green papaya salad with dried shrimp and peanuts is called som tum thai. The green papaya salad with salted crab is called som tum pbooh. The majority of the ingredients are the same. My mother likes it with both dried shrimp and salted crab.
Ingredients Som Tum Thai Green Papaya Salad Recipe 2 Servings
2 cups shredded fresh green papaya, use a Pro-Slice Thai peeler or Miracle Knife.
3 medium roma tomatoes, or use a few more if you can find cherry tomatoes
A handful of fresh string beans cut into 1 inch pieces
2 tablespoons dried shrimp
4-6 fresh Thai chiles, remove stems
3-4 cloves garlic
2 tablespoons fish sauce
2 tablespoons palm sugar
2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
2 tablespoons juice of pickled mud fish (optional)
Method Som Tum Thai Green Papaya Salad Recipe
Peel fresh green papaya, rinse the white milk off, pat dry, then shred the whole papaya. Sprinkle with a bit of salt then rinse it off and drain. Keep 2 cups shredded papaya out, and put the rest in a sealed container for later use. Slice tomatoes thinly. In a clay Lao-style mortar & pestle, coarsely pound the fresh chiles (whole) and garlic. Add string beans and sliced tomato, and pound it lightly (do not over-crush). Add dried shrimp, fish sauce, palm sugar and lime juice. Add these items spoon-by-spoon, and taste as you go. If you want to add peanuts, add now and lightly pound (optional). If you want to add pickled mud fish (pla ra), add two tablespoons of juice (optional). Add shredded papaya and pound together until mixed well. Serve on a dish with fresh cabbage and string beans on the side. Enjoy!
Many Asian supermarkets have pre-shredded green papaya and that is what I use. However, if you can only find whole green papaya, the papaya can be peeled and shredded using a regular cheese grater with medium to large sized holes. Or if you can find a papaya shredder, it works wonder. When you get closer to the center, you will see the white immature seeds inside. Stop and move onto another part of the papaya. Discard any seeds that got into your bowl. If you have a food processor with grater, you can shred the papaya faster.
In Thailand, green papaya salad is made using a clay mortar, wooden pestle and a spatula. Smash a clove of garlic first. Then add green beans and halved cherry tomatoes. Pound a few times just to bruise the beans and get the juice out of the tomatoes. Add chili peppers and crush them just enough to release the hotness, unless you like your salad really hot. Add the green papaya, dried shrimp, toasted peanuts, fish sauce, lime juice and palm sugar. Use the pestle to push the mixture up in the mortar and the spatula to push it down so that the mixture is mixed well.
However, if you do not have a big enough mortar you can crush garlic, tomatoes, green beans. Set them aside in a large bowl. Add dried shrimp, fish sauce, lime juice and palm sugar to the bowl. Add green papaya and mix well. Serve with sticky rice and a sliver of cabbage, green beans and Thai basil.
For som tum pbooh, omit the dried shrimp and toasted peanuts and add salted crabs instead. I microwave the salted crabs for 30 seconds before adding them to the papaya salad to kill any residual bacteria. Add only half of the fish sauce called for because the salted crab can be quite salty.
http://www.thaitable.com/thai/recipe/green-papaya-salad
http://importfood.com/recipes/thaipapayasalad.html
http://www.templeofthai.com/recipes/papaya_salad.php
