Thai Papaya salad is an easy and refreshing salad made with very few ingredients. Though it’s an all-season salad but still is preferred in summers as it tastes best when chilled.
Green Papaya Salad
This salad is eaten throughout in Southeast Asia. In Thailand, it is popularly known as Som Tam, which most of us are aware of!. Whereas in Laos, they call it Tam Som. In Cambodia, it is called Bok l’hong whereas Vietnamese call it Gol du du,
This colorful salad has all four tastes, namely, salty, sweet, spicy, and tangy. Its main ingredient is raw papaya to which certain other veggies are added like tomatoes, bean sprouts etc. Non-vegetarians like to add Shrimp etc to it. So, except for green papaya, nothing is fixed.
As we all know, when it comes to salads, there is no fixed recipe/ingredients and we can play around with the ingredients depending on the availability and our taste of course.
Remember, A Slight Deviation from the Fixed Ingredients gives a Nice Variation.
- In this Green Papaya Salad also I have made certain changes.
- First of all, instead of long juliennes of papaya, I prefer a grated one.
- Also, I neither add tomatoes nor beans nor garlic to it.
- I add only grated carrot, that too, in very little quantity, just to give color to the salad as green papaya is almost white.
- As far as Dressing is concerned, again I keep it simple by just adding lemon juice.
How to Make
- This 3 ingredient salad is extremely simple to make.
- Carrots or Tomatoes or beans are added in very little quantity mainly to give colour to it.
- Roasted and Crushed Peanuts lend crunchiness to the Som Tam salad and go perfectly well with it.
FAQs
Q) Green Papaya is slightly bitter in taste. How to overcome that?
- To remove the slight bitterness in the taste of green papaya, once grated (or shredded), put it in ice cold water, to which little salt and sugar have been added, for 15 minutes.
- Use 1/2 tsp each of salt and sugar for this much quantity of green papaya.
Q) I don’t want to grate it. How to shred it just like in Thai Salad?
No worries!. I have shredded raw mango with knife only in my Raw mango Salad. Check this recipe and you can shred green papaya too in the same manner.
Q) Can I make this salad ahead?
Yes. Mix everything and keep t in the refrigerator. But mix crushed peanuts only at the time of serving otherwise they would lose their crunch.
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