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donna_loomis

Som Tum

donna_loomis
9 years ago

A recent post regarding mortars and pestles spurred me to renew my search for a recipe for Som Tum (Green Papaya Salad). I have long been a fan of this Thai salad. The problem has been that it is very hard to find on a menu in my area. Even many Thai restaurants exclude it from their menu. I have only had it a few times, and although each tasted a little different, I have enjoyed them all.

I picked 8 recipes I found online and read and reread them, trying to decide which to use. Bobby Flay had a recipe for it, as did Emeril Lagasse. There was one from Saveur and one from Food & Wine Magazine. The rest were touted as authentic, one going so far as to make fun of the additions that chefs have put in their recipes. Ultimately, I decided on a melding of a couple of the authentic recipes.

Finding some of the ingredients was a bit of a challenge and I was unaccustomed to using some of them: Fish sauce, Thai Bird's-Eye Chilies, Palm sugar, dried shrimp and green papaya. The one ingredient I could not find was palm sugar, even though I looked in three different Asian grocery stores. I ended up substituting brown sugar (which was an ingredient in one of recipes I chose not to use).

I also had no mortar and pestle large enough for the 8 cups of salad I ended up with. I have a tiny suribachi, which would be fine for bashing (that's what the "authentic" recipes called it) the chilies and garlic, but the shredded papaya also needed bashing. Instead, I used the pestle from my canning sieve, not the pointed end, but turning it around and using the ball end. This worked reasonably well, except at the beginning when it was only the chilies and garlic. The garlic kept jumping out of my vessel. The vessel was also a challenge. I didn't want to go bashing in any of my pyrex, ceramic, or glass bowls, nor dent up my metal bowls. I finally remembered the bits and pieces of Guardian Service I inherited a few years ago from an elderly friend. This cookware was made sometime before World War II. During the war, people were asked to turn in the lids to the pots and pans in return for glass lids. as the metal was needed for war efforts. I have none of the lids, and the heavy aluminum cookware is not flat on the bottoms anymore, so the only thing I really use them for is oven braising or roasting. But I digress.

I did my bashing in one of those pots and it worked so well that I am not going to go in search of a large mortar and pestle. I'm fine with my makeshift tools.

The best part? My Som Tum is stupendous! It is supposed to set for a couple of hours for the flavors to marry, but I couldn't wait and had just a bit as soon as I was done. Then, a couple of hours later I had some with my lunch. Mmmmm. My mouth was burning, but it was such a good burn, LOL.

Preparation was very time consuming for a salad, but so worth it. And it made much more than I was expecting, so I'll have it for several days.

Any other Som Tum...

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