Way back, two years ago, when I found out I was going to be spending my service in Northeastern Thailand, my host family from training took me out to a ส้มตำ (som dtam) restaurant and ordered a couple different kinds of this spicy papaya salad and told me, “People in Isaan eat this a lot.”
They were right (it’s on the lunch table at school every day), and they introduced me to one of my favorite Thai foods. Som dtam is a spicy salad made with shredded, green papaya. It literally means “sour pounded,” which makes sense considering the unripe papaya is kind of sour and to make it, you pound up all the ingredients with a pestle and mortar.
There are so many different kinds of som dtam, with a variety of regional specialties (Isaan-style includes fermented fish and rice-paddy crabs) and even one made with a bunch of different kinds of fruit. I’m going to share a recipe on how to make my favorite version: som dtam Thai.
Ingredients
- 2 small-medium sized tomatoes, quartered
- 2 chili peppers (more or less depending on preference)
- 1 T dried shrimp (can omit for vegetarians)
- 1.5 T fish sauce (can substitute with soy sauce for vegetarians)
- 1 clove of garlic
- a handful of chopped long beans
- 2-3 handfuls of shredded, green papaya
- 1 lime
- 1.5 T palm sugar
- small handful of peanuts (optional)
(re: fish sauce, lime, peppers and palm sugar – you can vary the ratios of these to your flavor preference)
Instructions
- In a mortar, crush up the clove of garlic.
- Add in the beans and tomatoes and give them a couple pounds, just to bruise the beans and soften the tomatoes and release the juice.
- Add in the chili pepper. The more you crush them, the spicier the salad will be.
- Add in the papaya, dried shrimp, fish sauce and palm sugar. Quarter the lime, squeeze out the juice and throw them in, too.
- Mix up the ingredients well, using the pestle to kind of push the ingredients up the side of the mortar and a spoon to push it back down again.
- Once thoroughly mixed, scoop onto a plate and top with the peanuts.
Serve with sticky rice. Eat by balling up the sticky rice in your hand and pinching some of the salad to the rice ball and popping in your mouth. Also appropriate to soak up the salad juice with the sticky rice ball. Mmm-mmm. Also, often served with a plate of cabbage, raw long beans and Thai basil to munch on if it gets too spicy for you.