Papaya Salad (Som Tum) ส้มตำไทย

Papaya Salad is one of Thai's national dishes.

Serves 2-4 people medium size serving

Ingredients

300g Papaya - Grated into thin strips.
1 medium Tomato – Slice tomatoes medium size pieces.
1 ½ T Fish Sauce
1 ½ tsp Lime Juice
1 T Palm Sugar
1 Pepper - (Depending on the spiciness of the pepper, but 1 should be very mild.)
1 clove Garlic
1 T Peanuts
1 tsp Concentrate Cooking Tamarind
1 T dried shrimp

Preparation:

1. Use a sharp knife to peel the green papaya. (Don’t let any seeds fall into your pile of grated papaya. If you want you can slice it in half and use a spoon to scrape out the seeds.) Using the largest grater you have, grate the papaya, or you can use a potato peeler to create thin, ribbon-like strips. Place in a large bowl.
 2. Add garlic and pepper in mortar. Smash with pestle and mix them together.
 3. Add tomato slices, fish sauce, palm sugar, lime juice, peanuts, dried shrimpand concentrate cooking tamarind. Smash, mix, and toss all ingredients together well. Don’t smash them too hard as you don’t want it to become a big mush of ingredients, but hard enough that the juices come out of the ingredients.
 4. Add the grated papaya and smash, mix, and toss everything together one more time. ENJOY!!