total time : 30 minutes
total calories : 539
servings : 1 large servings or 4 as part of a banquet meal
Ingredients:
1/2 Green Papaya or Paw Paw (300 g) 102 calories
3 cloves of Garlic 12 calories
2 Red Chillies (small) 3 calories
4 Snake Beans 16 calories
1 Tbspn Palm Sugar 60 calories
1 Tbspn Fish Sauce 16 calories
1 Lime 14 calories
40 g raw peanuts 227 calories
2 Tbspn dried shrimp 26 calories
125 g Cherry Tomatoes 22 calories
160 g Cabbage 35 calories
1/2 Lebanese Cucumber 6 calories
1 Thai Krok or mortar and pestle
Preparation : Firstly and most importantly shred the papaya. First, peel the skin with a good strong peeler and then shred with an Asian julienne peeler or by using a sharp knife to make lots of incisions into the flesh of the papaya. Then run the knife lengthwise away from your body to leave shredded slices of the papaya. Search "Shredding Papaya" on YouTube for plenty of videos on how to shred papaya the traditional way. The third method is to shred with a vegetable peeler. Toast the peanuts in a dry fry pan until fragrant and stained with toasty browned edges. Halve cherry tomatoes. Break or cut the snake beans into approx 6 cm lengths. Use half for som tum and half for garnish. Cut cabbage into wedges.
Method :
1. Put the fresh garlic and chillies into the krok and pound until well broken up, then add 4 snake beans and pound a little more before adding palm sugar, fish sauce, lime juice, peanuts and dried shrimp. Continue to break up the ingredients with your Pestle before adding the cherry tomatoes and cautiously breaking them also. When you have something similar to the picture below you are ready to proceed (left ).
2. Now it's time to finish the som tum. Grab a good handful of the shredded papaya and place in the Krok. Using a kitchen spoon and your pestle alternate turning and pounding (not too aggressively) to thoroughly dress the papaya. When well coated but not broken up add the rest of your som tum and complete the dressing of the salad. (right above). Taste and add more lime or fish sauce for extra sourness or saltiness.
3. Time to plate. Scoop the salad onto a large dinner plate with your kitchen spoon making sure you get all those umami filled juices from the bottom of the krok. After that add the garnish. Top with a few more dried shrimp and peanuts. place a wedge of cabbage on the side with sliced cucumber and the rest of the snake beans.
Notes: If using a European mortar and pestle you will have to add the papaya in batches. Still pound all the flavour ingredients together, but then add and remove the completed papaya leaving the dressing for the next batch. Chillies are very much a personal preference. I would recommend using at least 1 chilli as it is definitely part of the flavour profile of the dish. Also, if making 2 batches you may not need as many chillies in the second batch because your krok will retain some of the heat from the initial som tum.
