Thai green papaya salad (Som Tam or Pok Pok)

One of my favourite Thai dishes of all time, but to make it in the UK you've got to find where they might sell green papaya and dried shrimps. Asian supermarkets will, but charging 10 times the few baht you'd buy them for in South East Asia - I just bought one green papaya for £4.80!  AND it's flown by air so food miles and carbon footprint are huge, but just once in a while it's nice to have a treat. I guess you could replace the green papaya with rice noodles and prawns, but that makes it a different salad.. I learned this in Cambodia but I've changed the recipe since the Thais make it better I think. (The Cambodians were getting carried away adding oyster sauce and tomato ketchup into the mix, sorry but yuk!) There are loads of variations on this recipe, just fiddle around with the ingredients till it tastes how you like it. You need a pestle and mortar if you want to do this properly really! Everything, even the shredded papaya, needs bruising in it. You'll also need a julienne stripper to shred the papaya, and v useful for other veg like carrot too.

Ingredients (serving 1)

A large handful of shredded green papaya A small handful of dried shrimps, chopped 1 small Thai red chilli, chopped Some green beans, chopped into 2cm lengths - can be lightly steamed or raw, in fact if you have a tendency to over-boil veg then don't go anywhere NEAR the saucepan with these! Half a clove of garlic, peeled and chopped 1 large handful of cherry tomatoes, halved 2 small handfuls of roasted peanuts (it’s fine if they’re salted) 1 tablespoon of palm sugar - ordinary sugar if you have none, but try and always buy unrefined 1 tablespoon of fish sauce lime juice - at least 1 lime if not two or 3 Thai basil

Method

peel the papaya, and shred with a julienne shredder into thin strips. Pound the green beans, red chilli and garlic in the mortar. Throw in the peanuts and dried shrimp and pound again, then add the palm sugar and tomatoes and pound again, lightly. Now introduce the lime juice, fish sauce and a large handful of shredded papaya. Give one last quick bruise and mix.
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