Papaya Salad

I've never really enjoyed papaya salad in Thai restaurants in the States. And now that I've had proper papaya salad, I realized that it's probably because restaurants prepare it ahead of time and it just sits too long and gets a bit too limp and pickled.

Our initial exposure to papaya salad in Thailand was at our hotel in Chiang Mai. They offered a cultural activity every afternoon and the first day we were there, the activity was making papaya salad. We had just picked up some things for lunch at a nearby chicken shop, including Thai roasted rotisserie chicken, rice, and stir fried morning glory and we decided papaya salad would round out the meal nicely so we jumped right into the activity.

They'd set up a mortar and pestle and an array of colorful vegetables and the instructor guided us through the recipe. It was so simple and easy and quick but the resultant salad was so vibrant and spicy and crunchy and moreish.

Ingredients [serves 4 as a side dish]:
½ green papaya
2 carrots
3 cloves garlic
5 to 10 thai chilis
2 to 3 long beans
5 to 7 cherry tomatoes
½ lime
2 teaspoons fish sauce
2 tablespoons palm sugar

Start by peeling and deseeding the papaya. I was so grossed out by the papaya seeds. There was something so creepy and disgusting about their texture, color, and pattern. I wouldn't shut up about it to a point where my sister was screaming at me to get over it. But I'm getting the chills looking at these photos and even just thinking about it now is giving me the urge to crawl into a hole and die.

Once the papaya is prepped, wrap one half with cling film and pop into the fridge for another time and grab the other half and finely julienne. If you're not great with a knife, you can also use the large holes on a box grater but I prefer the texture of cut papaya. Do the same thing with the carrot.

Add garlic and Thai chili to the mortar and pound with the pestle. (My pneumonic device for remember which is the mortar and which is the pestle is to remember that pestle and penis both start with 'p'; is that helpful?)

Next, crush the long beans. If you don't have access to long beans, you can just use green beans. Long beans are a little less verdant than green beans but they're essentially the same. I think the beans help to temper the spice of the chilis. Once the long beans have been smashed up, do the same to the tomatoes.

Squeeze in the juice of half a lime (about 2 to 3 tablespoons), shake in some fish sauce, and add a scoop of palm sugar. Palm sugar has a delicate sweetness that has a slight caramel-like flavor; if you don't have access to palm sugar, use about half the amount of brown sugar. Stir everything together with the pestle so the sugar dissolves and the vegetables start to soak up the seasoning.

Last step is to add the papaya and carrot and use the pestle to start bruising and tenderizing the papaya. The order in which the ingredients are added totally make sense. You want to make sure the garlic and chilis are basically ground into a paste to permeate the salad. The long beans go next because they're pretty hearty and need a bit of extra elbow grease. The tomatoes are more delicate and don't need much attention.

Once the papaya has softened and starts to look a bit translucent, use a spoon to stir and make sure the ingredients are well-combined and the salad is ready to be served.

We had the papaya salad with a big plate of drunken noodles with soft tofu, roasted pork, and stir fried morning glory. I'll be sharing the morning glory recipe soon.

Like all Thai food, the papaya salad has such a lovely balance of flavors. There's sweetness, spice, and saltiness. The texture is also great; the papaya is firm but not crunchy and it really soaks up all of the seasoning.

Here's the recipe page: