Papaya salad is sweet, spicy, sour, salty, crisp and refreshing.
It is made using the unripened green papaya. Before the fruit turns orange and matures yielding soft and sweet flesh; it is firm, crunchy, and tart. Once the skin is peeled, green papaya is often shredded and made into pickles or mixed into salad.
There are so many ways to make papaya salad. Some people use garlic, some do not. Some variants have dried shrimp, pickled crab, shrimp paste, the list goes on. There is also a difference between Thai style vs. Lao style papaya salad, but thats a later post.
This recipe is pretty simple and to the point. A large mortar and pestle is an essential tool for this dish, but if you don’t have it you can chop up all ingredients for the sauce and toss everything in a large mixing bowl in a pinch. The papaya can be peeled using the traditional method with a knife, or with a Julienne Peeler like this one here.
You can find all the ingredients in this salad at your local Asian market. When shopping for green papaya, I like to make sure the flesh is firm, and the skin is unblemished. If you can’t find Chinese long beans, you can substitute with french green beans (they are more tender than regular green beans). For the acid, I used a combination of lime juice and tamarind concentrate. If you don’t have tamarind, feel free to just use lime juice.
I also used some palm sugar for sweetness. Regular sugar, coconut sugar, or even honey are good substitutions. Although I don’t like to cook with sweeteners, to achieve notes of sweet, sour, salty, and spicy- some added sweetness is required.
Palm sugar comes in these type of mounds. You can shave off slices with your knife, or I just break mine in half and pound it with the pestle until a paste is formed.
Traditionally, papaya salad is topped with peanuts. Here, i used roasted cashews because that’s what we have on hand (and because they’re delicious). Mix, serve, and enjoy!
- 1 medium sized firm green papaya
- 3-5 whole thai chili peppers
- 2-3 tablespoons shredded palm sugar ( adjust accordingly to taste )
- 2 tablespoons Red Boat Fish Sauce
- 2-3 tablespoons fresh squeezed lime juice ( adjust accordingly to taste)
- 1 tablespoon tamarind concentrate
- 2 long beans, cut into 1 inch pieces
- 1 cup cherry tomatoes, halved
- Roasted Peanuts and green cabbage wedge for garnish, optional
- Peel the papaya using a vegetable peeler. Shred the papaya into fine shreds using a julienne peeler or a knife. Place shredded papaya into a bowl of ice cold water to keep crisp until ready to assemble. Set aside.
- In a mortar and pestle, begin pounding the thai chili peppers until fine. Add the palm sugar. Continue pounding until a fine paste is formed.
- Next, add the fish sauce, lime juice, and tamarind, mix well. Add the long beans, gently smashing the beans against the side of the mortar. Repeat method with tomatoes. Taste for seasoning, then add papaya.
- With the pestle in on hand and a spoon in the other, alternatively smash and mix the papaya and sauce. Pour salad onto a plate to serve alongside a green cabbage wedge, and top with peanuts for garnish.
Leave a Reply