Som TumMost women dream of expensive jewelry, designer clothes, dozens of shoes and exotic vacations. I dream of a dream-kitchen. Granite countertop, stainless steel double ovens, top of the line pots and pans, dishwasher and stove, huge kitchen island, lots of glass windows overlooking my herb and vegetable garden, lots of cabinets and not to forget, a room-size pantry. Aahhhh, I think I will sleep in my kitchen too if I had one like that! I would love to keep my countertop absolutely devoid of any utensil or equipment too just like the chefs in the television shows do. I just need to convince my husband that being an upcoming celebrity-chef, we need a kitchen like that right now. 🙂 Yeah right!!!

I recently had the opportunity to see such a kitchen when one of our friends invited us over to their parents’ place. Needless to say, that was all I could talk about to my husband the whole day! The kitchen was so inviting, warm and cozy that I could see myself  in such a kitchen, preparing breakfast for family, chatting away with my husband who is sitting at breakfast table few feet away while the kids run around chasing each other. Sigh! I am a sucker for beautiful kitchens. But then who ever heard of good things coming true without ever visualizing them?

Earth to Nidhi!! Som Tum or Som Tam is a popular Thai salad. It’s quite refreshing in taste and comes together quickly if you have the ingredients on hand. Green papaya doesn’t have much taste of its own so it absorbs all the flavors beautifully. Traditionally a papaya shredder (like Kiwi Pro Slice Peeler ) is used to shred the papaya. It gives long and thin juliennes of papaya which makes a huge difference in my opinion. The first time I made the salad, I had used the shredder disc in my food processor but it gave me short and thick juliennes as seen in the picture below and you can use a box grater if getting such a peeler/shredder is difficult for you but if you can find it, it’s totally worth getting it because you will be making this salad again and again.

Som Tum

Also traditionally, this salad is made in a big clay mortar and wooden pestle by pounding the ingredients and letting the flavors infuse with each other but I didn’t go that route. Nonetheless, this is an extremely delicious and healthy salad with so many amazing flavors that you are going to love every bite of it.

Som Tum/ Green papaya salad

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Yield: 3-4 people

Ingredients

  • 4 cups shredded green papaya
  • 2 tomato, cut into bite size pieces
  • 2 Thai red chili , minced
  • 4 large cloves of garlic, minced
  • 4 long green beans, cut into 2 inch long pieces
  • 3 tbsp. brown sugar or palm sugar
  • 2 tbsp. dark soy sauce
  • juice of 3/4 lemon
  • 3-4 tbsp. tamarind extract
  • 1 cup coarsely crushed roasted peanuts

Instructions

  1. To the shredded papaya, add beans, garlic and chili. Mix well.
  2. Add tomato chunks to papaya.
  3. Add sugar, soya sauce, lime juice, tamarind extract and mix well.
  4. Taste and check if the salad needs salt. Mine didn't.
  5. Add peanuts and mix well. Save a few for garnish.
  6. Dish it out in a salad bowl. Garnish with a lemon wedge and crushed peanuts.
https://www.morethancurry.com/som-tum-green-papaya-salad/

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