When I lived in Thailand my daily lunch tradition was to visit the little food stall outside my school and order a plate of som tam, a spicy, sour, sweet, and salty salad made with shredded green papaya and served with a blob of sticky rice.  Over the years, as my chili tolerance grew, I graduated from three red chilies to a searing nine red chilies in my salad–so many that the Thai women who gathered around the stall would debate over whether I was really a farang (foreigner) or not.  Moving to India has lowered my chili tolerance because, unlike in Thailand where the water is relatively clean, street-food here isn’t always the most hygienic choice!  (And restaurant food is nowhere near as spicy.)

Eating som tam on the beach on Koh Samet (Samet Island), Thailand

I was never adventurous enough to try som tam pla laa (with fermented fish) or moo (with raw crab), and I’m glad because the former has been blamed for the high rates of liver cancer in Thais due to a parasite that lives in the fish.  Needless to say, my version does not have ANY dangerous ingredients in it.  The most “exotic” ingredient is perhaps the fish sauce, which bears no relation to the cancer-causing fermented fish mentioned above.

Thankfully, there are only a few special ingredients required to make an authentic plate of som tam, and none are that difficult to find these days.  My som tam lady always included dried shrimp, raw green beans, and tomatoes in addition to the ingredients listed below.

Som tam is made in a big wooden bowl and pounded with a wooden pestle.  I brought mine with me to Mumbai from Thailand when I moved here.  If you don’t have one, you can improvise by pounding your salad in any large (unbreakable) bowl using a rolling-pin, perhaps.   But you must pound!  ”Som tam” actually means pounded salad, and pounding the ingredients together softens the tough papaya and melds the flavors.

The beauty of som tam is that there is no right or wrong way of making it; if you like it extra tart, add more lime; if you don’t like the fish sauce, leave it out or replace some of it with light soy sauce.  The hardest part for me was bringing myself to add the amount of sugar called for–it’s a lot!  I’ve tried to make low sugar and no sugar versions, but they just don’t taste very good.  Splenda or stevia, maybe?  Palm sugar is called jaggery in India and is widely available but much harder to work with than the Thai stuff, but if I have to use it, I find that sticking it in the microwave for few minutes helps make it more pliable.  Or you could experiment with different sweeteners, such as brown sugar!

Makes 2-3 large servings

Ingredients:

6 cloves of garlic

hot red chilies to taste

6 T soft palm sugar or to taste

6 T Thai fish sauce or to taste

2 medium limes, juiced

small handful of dried tamarind, soaked in 1/2 cup of water for a few minutes and then mixed until pulp and water combine to form a thick liquid; discard solids (optional)

salt to taste

1 large firm green papaya, peeled and shredded, seeds and membrane discarded (if you don’t have the special tool pictured below, you can use a use a large, sharp knife to hack at the papaya all the way around and then shave off thin strips or you can use a mandolin or food processor to achieve a fine julienne).

1 small green mango, peeled and shredded, seed discarded (optional)

handful of unsalted peanuts, roasted and without skins

Prepare all your ingredients in separate bowls ahead of time so you can add them as you go

Thai food always has lots of “stuff” in it that needs to be picked around, like chunks of galangal and stalks of lemongrass, so don’t bother removing the garlic peels, and you can throw the lime halves in the bowl for added flavor after you squeeze the juice in.

1. Begin by pounding 3 cloves of garlic with desired number of red chilies until garlic is smashed and comes away from the peel and the chilies are broken into a few pieces and have released some of their seeds.

2.  Add 3 T or half the palm sugar, juice of 1 lime, 3 T or half the fish sauce, and 2 T of the tamarind liquid to the bowl.

3.  Pound until the sugar is dissolved, being careful not to splash the liquid into your eyes.  Taste a little of the sauce.  Adjust the heat, acid, sugar, and salt to balance the flavors to your liking.

4. Add a handful of the shredded papaya and mango to the bowl on top of the sauce.  If you are right-handed, hold the pestle in your right hand and a fork in your left.  Alternate pounding the papaya into the sauce with the pestle and scraping down the sides of the bowl with the fork.  Do this maybe 10 times until the sauce begins to coat the slightly softened papaya and mango.  Don’t go overboard lest the papaya loses its crunch and becomes soggy.

5.  Add a bit more of the shredded papaya and mango to the bowl, but not too much as there should be a lot more sauce than salad.  Also add half the peanuts to the bowl.  Pound/scrape a few more times until incorporated.

6.  With a spoon, scrape salad onto a large plate.  Let all of the sauce drip onto the salad; there should be a puddle of it left on the plate after you eat your som tam.  Awesome for dunking any leftover sticky rice!

7.  Repeat 1-6 to make another serving.  You may have excess papaya/mango to make a 3rd serving.  If you don’t plan to use it right away, pat it dry and store it in an airtight container in the fridge.  It should last 2-3 days.

Thais eat pretty much everything, including som tam,  with a spoon and fork, but I like eating mine with chopsticks!  Enjoy:)