Som-Tam is a specific dish for thrill-seekers and exotic lovers. Its main ingredient is green papaya. The salad has a rich fishy taste of shrimp. Sweet and sour accents are added with lime and cane sugar. Garlic and chili pepper serve as the final spicy note. For those who like to experiment with oriental cuisine, it will be interesting to cook a salad at home.
Som-Tam salad ingredients
The recipe for this dish came to Europe from the traditional national cuisine of Thailand. Som-Tam is extremely popular both among the Thais themselves and among the guests of their country. Its indescribable sharp, one might even say, burning taste is impossible to forget.
To prepare Thai Som-Tam salad, the following ingredients are required:
- 350 grams of papaya (green);
- 75 grams of shrimp (dried);
- 2 tablespoons of peanuts (roasted);
- 50 grams of carrots;
- 1 large tomato (6 pieces of cherry can be used);
- 2 cloves of garlic;
- 1 teaspoon of sugar;
- 2 tablespoons of squeezed lime juice;
- 4-5 bean pods;
- 1-2 chili peppers;
- 2-3 tablespoons of prepared fish or soy sauce.
The first stage of preparation
The first step is to cut the papaya into very thin strips. To do this, you can use a special knife or a Korean carrot grater. For further cooking, you will need a mortar. Garlic cloves and chili peppers are placed in it. It is necessary to grind them with a mortar as fine as possible until a gruel is formed.
Next, add fish (soy sauce) and sugar to the mortar. Repeat the grinding procedure again until the granulated sugar is completely dissolved. Squeeze out the lime juice. Then put the grated papaya into the mortar and beat it off a little, since it has a rigid structure. Following this, carrots are also added there. All are mixed.
In the absence of papaya, you can replace it with a green sour apple. In this case, you do not need to beat the apple straws in a mortar.
The second stage of preparation
Peanuts are crushed separately into small pieces. Tomatoes (large) can be cut into small pieces. In case of using cherry, they should be divided into halves and squeezed slightly until juicing appears. Mix these foods by adding chunks of green beans and dried shrimp. Combine all ingredients into one composition. Stir the salad thoroughly and place on a special plate.
Instead of shrimp, you can diversify this salad with dried anchovies or squid meat. The taste will be slightly different, but the seafood component will nevertheless be present.
Since the Som-Tam salad is too spicy, it needs some kind of side dish. Usually the simplest boiled rice is offered. In the case of using the salad in European cuisine, you can serve boiled potatoes or mashed potatoes with it, complementing them with a hot fish dish.
