Thai Green Papaya spicy salad or Som Tum

Thai Green Papaya spicy salad or Som Tum

This is the most famous salad in Thailand. The original dish came from North-eastern Thai/Laos. Ever since I was a kid, this dish was always around and everyone loves it. When I grew up, lived and worked in Bangkok, I had this dish everyday for lunch, especially when I wanted to loose weight!! 

There are several versions of it. Sometimes people use shredded carrot instead of green papaya. All kinds of hard fruit like guava or apple can be use as well. 

In this recipe I added cooked seafood into the dish to make it more luxurious ;P 

Ingredients :

• 2 hand full Shredded Green Papaya (Paw Paw)
• 1/2 Cup chopped cherry tomatoes
• 1/2 Cup green bean cut 2cm long (In the photo I used some cabbage as it was all had in the fridge at that time :P) 
• 1 Cup seafood mixed (cooked)
• 1Tbsp fish sauce
• 1Tbsp lime juice
• 1Tbsp palm sugar or brown sugar
• 2 Cloves garlic
• Red eye chilli (choose your own level of spiciness)

Methods :

Add garlic and chilli in mortar and pestle and crush together.

Add tomatoes, fish sauce, sugar and lime juice and mix it together using pestle, lightly crushing  the tomatoes. Taste. The taste should be combination of spicy, salty and sour.
Pour the mixture into a salad bowl and add green beans and papaya.
Mix well
Add cooked seafood into salad and mix well.
Serve with grilled chicken or BBQ pork and sticky rice :)