I make this green papaya salad, a Thai specialty, and I’ve gotten a few requests on how to make it, so I’ve decided to put in a blog post.
The salad ingredients:
- Green Papaya (sometimes called cooking papaya – not a red or orange one)
- A handful of green beans
- tomatoes (the little “grape tomatoes” if you want, but I just use whatever tomato I have around.)
- hot peppers – to your taste – I usually use two jalapenos
- a handful of peanuts
The sauce:
- two or three garlic gloves
- the juice of a lime
- Thai basil
- fish sauce
- salt
- sugar (I use fake sugar – two packets)
To make it:
First, the green papaya. They come in varying sizes, so hard to put a figure on it, but say you get one about the size of two fists… Use half to serve 3 or 4 good sized portions. Cut the papaya in half. Take out the seeds, and discard them. Peel the papaya. Then grate it into a bowl.
Trim the beans, and chop into bite size pieces.
Chop up the jalapenos quite small, discarding the seeds.
Take about a cup of water, stick it into a two cup measuring cup, and slap it into the microwave for 3 minutes on high, or until the water boils. Drop the beans and the jalapeno pieces into the water and leave it for 20-30 seconds. Immediately rinse under cold water. Drain the water and throw the beans and jalapenos in with the grated green papaya.
Now make the sauce. Smash the garlic gloves, and chop them finely. Pour a half teaspoon of salt over the chopped garlic and let it sit while you juice the lime. I have a great gadget for juicing a lime, and so I just chop the lime into about 6-8 pieces and use the “squisher” and put the juice into a measuring cup. Add the two packets of fake sugar and about a tablespoon of the fish sauce. Now press your knife into the salt/garlic mixture and squish it. Then throw it into the lime/sugar/fish sauce mixture. Chop up about 8 or 10 leaves of the Thai basil and throw it in. Give it a good whisk with a fork.
Pour it over the papaya/green bean/jalapeno mixture and give it a good mixing.
Now chop up the tomatoes and add it to the salad. Let it sit for a bit.
When you go to serve it, just put it on your plates, and throw a few peanuts over the top of each salad.
It’s been a tough transition to the cool climes of Canada after the warm temperatures in the Caribbean! We’ve been treated to a couple spectacular days of fog here though, so that’s been interesting.
