Mekong Market is a beacon in the night for the scores of Mesa residents pining away for Asian culinary delights (there are more of us, right guys? … guys?). You have no idea just how happy kaffir lime leaves can make you until you think you’ll never see them again. Just don’t convert the prices to baht…
I made absolutely NO substitutions for this dinner. Mekong had everything, from a huge jar of palm sugar down to a packet of teeny dried shrimpys. Feel free to try any of these with ‘merikun ingredients, but expect wildly different results.
I remember trying “green papaya salad” in Honolulu a few days prior to my foray into Southeast Asia. I had read about it as a specialty in a book on Asian food, so we picked it up from a Thai restaurant and headed to Makaha Beach for swimming and a snack. Our conclusion: mediocre at best. Limp, pale green, flavorless.
If you’ve ever had som tam for 30 baht from a little old lady on the corner who has been making it every day of her life, then you know “flavorless” is the LAST word you’d ever ascribe to the famous thai salad. The secret is in a balance of a total rainbow of flavors – salty fish sauce, sweet palm sugar, spicy chilis, garlicky garlic, sour lime… plus the textures of fresh and snappy green papaya and long beans, and the chewy, fishy dried shrimp, and the crunch of plenty of peanuts…
As you may have noticed, som tam has little to nothing to do with the concept of “salad” in the States (iceberg lettuce and ranch dressing can get the hell out of my kitchen). It is fresh, it is healthy, it is bursting at the seams with taste-o-rama. It is juicy, it is spicy, it is tangy-sweet-peanutty-spicy goodness.
And if you want it in the States, you have to make it yourself.
As soon as I saw Mekong had pre-shredded green papaya, I knew I had to give it a go. Dad called it a “risky” menu, and perhaps it was in some ways – for one, I lack what’s supposed to give som tam the “tam” (“pounded”):
… a beautiful, traditional, heavy-duty clay or wooden mortar and pestle, perfect for crunching together all the ingredients. Instead, I have:
… a molcajete. Also beautiful and traditional, but from the opposite side of the globe. Also, it is riddled with HOLES, just perfect for trapping chili seeds for weeks, only to resurface with a vengeance in some inoccuous spice mix I’m sure. Ah well – I justified it to myself, reasoning that som tam from my own kitchen likely required a sacrifice. I should count myself lucky it was a mere molcajete, rather than the spilled blood of a virgin (hmmm… will keep my eyes open next time at Mekong).
In spite of my lack of appropriate tools for the job, the resulting salad was declared by all aloi mak MAK. Refreshing, spicy, juicy, I-just-want-one-more-bite delicious. It was accompanied, necessarily, by sticky rice.
Note: if you are looking for ripe mango salad, check out Tangy Mango Salad with Mint and Toasted Cashews.
Som Tam
[imperative side dish: sticky rice]
Adapted from Kasma Loha-unchit’s recipe on thai-info.com, plus all my memories of watching little old ladies make it for me. “Sam prik ka. Poo mai ow.“
makes: 4-5 servings
time: tricky one. I recommend prepping all the ingredients completely before putting any of them together, which should be done directly before you plan to serve. Prepping takes maybe 10 minutes if your papaya is pre-shredded, pounding perhaps 5-10 more. You can put together the first four ingredients and let them sit for a spell while you run around the kitchen; just don’t add the papaya until you’re ready to munch – it will juice out and get soggy.
4 Thai chilies (bird peppers), each cut into 3-4 segments – adjust this based on your spice tolerance. 4 gave a nice balance between my cravings for heat and my family’s suffering taste buds.
4 cloves garlic, peeled and cut each into 2-3 pieces
1 T small dried shrimp
1/2 cup cut long beans
2 cups julienned peeled unripe papaya
1 julienned carrot
Juice of 1-2 limes, to taste – I needed one – how juicy are your limes, baby?
1-2 T fish sauce, to taste
1-2 T palm sugar, melted with 1T water into a thick syrup – use as needed
1 small tomato, cut into bite-size wedges
1/4 cup chopped roasted peanuts
1. Using a large mortar with a wooden pestle (or whatever you have that you think will work…), pound the garlic and chillies to a paste. Add the dried shrimp and long beans and pound to bruise.
2. Follow with the green papaya and carrot. Stir well with a spoon and pound to bruise the vegetables so that they absorb the heat and flavor of the chillies and garlic.
3. Add the lime juice, fish sauce and palm sugar – go light on them at first. Stir and pound a bit more to blend the vegetables with the flavorings and seasonings. Taste and adjust flavors to the desired hot-sour-sweet-salty combination. Then add the tomato pieces, stir and bruise lightly to blend in with the rest of the salad.
4. Transfer to a serving plate and sprinkle with peanuts. Serve with sticky rice on the side.
NOTE: Som tam does not keep well – the flavors get way stronger and muddled, and the papaya loses its characteristic crunch. Make just what you think will be eaten straight away.
ALSO: My version is not vegetarian, but if desired you could easily use veggie fish sauce and omit the shrimpies.
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