If you're not hungry yet, your mouth will definitely starts to water after this.
I haven’t had thai food in a while, but today I was really craving for some super spicy Som Tam Lao = Papaya Salad Isaan style. You call it “Som Tam Lao” in Thailand, because this dish is originally from the northeast of Thailand Isaan, which is directly on the border to Laos. It is one of my favorite dish and I was really good in making it. Som Tam Lao has a harmonious combination of the flavours spicy, sour, salty and sweet. And it will smell like a mix of garlic and fresh green lime.
So today I want to share with you the recipe of Som Tam Lao. Hope you like it as much as I do.
Before you make Som Tam Lao you maybe need to buy some stuff.
Here is a list of things you will need to make this salad. Some of them you’ll get in the normal supermarket, but for some of them you have to go to an Asia Shop.
Things you need:
-> Spicy thai chillies (a mix of green and red chillies would be perfect)
-> fish sauce (I use the brand SQUID)
-> palm sugar
-> limes
-> garlic
-> cherry tomatoes
-> green papaya, or unripe papaya (Yes it has to be green, not the fruit, yellow-orange papaya! You will have to buy this in an Asia Shop)
-> mortar and pestle (I have a clay mortar and a wooden pestle. But it’s not really necessary if you don’t want to buy it.)
-> fermented fish sauce and crab
Let’s make Som Tam Lao:
Peel off the skin of the papaya with a potato peeler or a knife. Use a big knife to hack on the papaya to get numerous cuts. Sounds weird I know, but trust me. Now shave the hacked papaya vertically layer by layer with the potato peeler. You will get many small thin slivers. You have to do this until you have at least 1 ½ hand full of papaya slivers. Then leave the slivers for now to prepare the “dressing”
For the dressing you have to pound 1 clove of garlic (peel it first) and chillies (8 chillies for very spicy) in the mortar. Pound them together until garlic and chillies are crushed and leave it in the mortar. For those who have no mortar, you can put the garlic and chillies in a small freezer bag and pound it with a rolling pin.
Add 1 tablespoon of fish sauce, 1 tablespoon of fermented fish sauce, 1 tablespoon of palm sugar and 1-2 tablespoon of fresh lime juice into the mortar. Or mix all these ingredients in a salad bowl with the pounded garlic and chillies. You can always add more of your favourite flavour if you don‘t like it that way. I like it more sour, so I usually add more lime juice.
After you have all the ingredients for the dressing together you have to pound or mix it until the palm sugar is completely dissolved.
Slice 3-5 cherry tomatoes into half and add them to the dressing in your mortar/ bowl and crush the tomato slices just a little bit to break them up do the same with the fermented crab.
Now take 1 ½ handful of the green papaya slivers and mixed them together with everything in your mortar/bowl. I mixed them in the mortar with my tablespoon and pound it lightly together with the pestle. And that’s it!
I love to eat it with sticky rice, like the traditional Isaan style but it also taste really good with plain cooked jasmine rice.
