Som tam Thai or Thai papaya salad is the perfect answer to a hot day. This sweet, sour, and spicy dish is easy to prepare and absolutely delicious.
No matter where you are in Thailand, som tam is available. In every night market, wooden pestles and porcelain mortars are pounding fruits and salads into one of the most popular dishes in Thailand.
Som tam Thai is a shredded green papaya salad that grew to popularity in central Thailand before being embraced by the rest of the country. Combing crunchy, unripe papaya, fresh chili, garlic, and dried shrimp with roasted peanuts, tomatoes, and long beans, som tam is the refreshing answer to the high humidity of Thailand.
Like any salad, all of the ingredients for som tam Thai get pulled together by a tangy dressing made from lime juice, fish sauce, and chili peppers. The end result is a vibrant and flavorful dish that’s perfect for hot summer days.
What Is Som Tam?
Som tam Thai, also known as Thai papaya salad is a type of Tam-style pounded salad that have been a huge part of the diet in southern Asian countries such as Thailand and Laos. The popular Thai salad takes on sweet and sour notes as ingredients such as green papaya, tomato, garlic, chili, peanuts, lime juice, and fish sauce are pounded together to release their flavors and juices.
The result is a well-balanced and complex dish that covers spicy, sour, sweet, and salty. Som Tam Thai can be eaten as a side dish or as a main meal. It’s often served with sticky rice or alongside grilled meats such as chicken skewers. While the traditional som tam recipe includes dried shrimp, that ingredient can be left out for a vegetarian som tam Thai.
Som tam Thai makes for the perfect on-the-go meal. It’s easy to eat, healthy, and refreshing. It’s also very easy to vary the flavor from sweet, to sour, to savory by adding ingredients such as salted crabs or pickled plums.
How To Make Som Tom
Making the perfect som tam recipe starts with picking the right papaya. green papaya is what you want. If it gets too ripe, then the fruit becomes soft and sweet rather than firm and sour sweet. You can usually find this at most Asian grocery stores.
Make sure to look for green papaya that are firm and feel dense and heavy. If the papaya is too squishy, it’s overripe and not the best fit for this recipe.
Once you’ve got the perfect fruit selected, peel it and slice it into thin strips. I usually cut the fruit in long, parallel cuts that run the length of the papaya. You can cut it side-length, but I find the longer cuts tend to present better. the idea is to get long, thin, imperfect shreds combined with chunkier, crunchier pieces of papaya. This gets you the varied texture that you’ll often find in Thailand.
If you love to make som tam Thai then you may want to invest in a special tool to peel the papaya strips. A tool like this can save you a lot of time and energy.
Once you’ve prepared the green papaya, you’ll need to pound the salad. This is done by taking the fresh chili, garlic, and dried shrimp and pounding them with a mortar and pestle until they are slightly broken down.
Once the salad is separated, add the roasted peanuts and continue to pound before adding the palm sugar. Finish it by adding the long beans, tomatoes, lime juice, and fish sauce. The papaya goes into the mix last.
The goal is to have the green papaya soak in the dressing while remaining crunchy. To do this, make sure that you’re pounding to separate, not to crush. It’s also ideal to serve the salad right after you make it. This ensures that the ingredients don’t soak up too much dressing and become soggy.
Som Tam Thai Recipe
Thai Papaya Salad Recipe
Thai papaya salad, or som tom Thai is a popular and flavorful salad found throughout Thailand. Popular for its refreshing flavor and easy and light flavor, Thai papaya salad typically consists of shredded green papaya, tomatoes, garlic, chilies, peanuts, dried shrimp, lime juice, fish sauce, and palm sugar, all mixed together in a mortar and pestle.
Ingredients
- 2 cups (150g) shredded green papaya
- 2 small garlic cloves
- 1-4 hot chili peppers (depending on desired heat) with stems removed
- 3 long beans cut into 1 inch lengths
- 1/2 firm tomato, chopped
- 2 tsp fish sauce
- 3 tbsp plus 2 tsp palm sugar
- 2 tbsp roasted peanuts
- 2 tbsp dried shrimp
- 3 tbsp fresh lime juice
Instructions
- Using a mortar and pestle grind the garlic and chili peppers together.
- Add green beans and pound gently.
- Add fish sauce, palm sugar, dried shrimp, lime juice, and half of the roasted peanuts. grind in a circular motion to avoid over-crushing the ingredients.
- Add tomatoes and press gently, just enough to release their juices without crushing the fruit.
- Add fish sauce and stir salad until combined.
- Add the green papaya to mixture. Pound the sides of the mortar while pushing the ingredients back and forth. Avoid pounding the center of the mortar. Don't over-pound the papaya or it will lose its crunch,
- Move to a serving plate and sprinkle with the remaining roasted peanuts.
Notes
For a more complete meal, som tom Thai, or Thai papaya salad pairs very well with sticky rice and grilled chicken. To make a mixed fruit salad, follow the same recipe but leave out the tomato and green beans.
Feel free to add or reduce the amount of chili to control the spiciness.
Nutrition Information:
Yield: 4Amount Per Serving:Calories: 186Total Fat: 8gCarbohydrates: 29gProtein: 6g
