Thai New Year Recipe For You To Try At Home!

Som Tam*** [PF] Thai
Serves 4 as a starter

Ingredients
300g green papaya, grated
4 garlic cloves
3 bird’s eye chillies
1dsp unsalted, roasted peanuts
6 cherry tomatoes, halved
80g string beans, cut 4cm
2dsp fish sauce
1dsp or 20g palm sugar
2dsp lime juice
50g carrots, grated
20g dried shrimps
2dsp unsalted, roasted peanuts, crushed, to garnish p267
5g dried shrimp to garnish

Cooking method:
1. Peel the papaya and rinse under running water. Halve, remove the seeds and grate it roughly. Soak in cold water for 5 minutes – this makes it very crunchy and delicious.
2. Using a big pestle and mortar, pound the garlic cloves, bird’s eye chillies and roasted peanuts to a rough purée.
3. Then add the cherry tomatoes and string beans and pound again but don’t pound the beans and tomatoes too finely. Season with fish sauce, palm sugar and lime juice.
4. Now mix together with the papaya, carrots and dried shrimp and continue pounding until well mixed but still rough. You can modify the spiciness by increasing or decreasing the amount of bird’s eye chillies or by de-seeding the chillies.
5. To serve garnish with a little dried shrimp and roasted peanuts and serve at room temperature.