Som Tam Thai

Ingredients

• 350g green papaya, peeled and shredded
• 2 garlic cloves
• 4 bird's eye chillies
• 2 tbsp dried shrimp
• 40g roasted peanuts
• 12 snake beans or green beans, cut into 4cm lengths
• 10 cherry tomatoes, halved
• 3 tbsp fish sauce
• 3 tbsp lime juice
• 2 tbsp palm sugar
• 1 tbsp tamarind concentrate

Before you cook

• Peel the green papaya, then shred it into long thin strands with a julienne peeler or by chopping down the surface and shaving off the cuts
• Soak the shredded papaya in ice water for 10 minutes, then drain and dry it thoroughly
• Cut the beans into 4cm lengths and halve the cherry tomatoes
• Chop the palm sugar into small pieces so it dissolves under the pestle

Steps

1. Put the garlic and chillies in a large mortar and pound them into a rough paste.
2. Add the palm sugar and pound until it breaks down and starts to dissolve.
3. Add the dried shrimp and half the peanuts and pound them into coarse crumbs.
4. Pour in the fish sauce, lime juice and tamarind, then stir with the pestle until the sugar has fully dissolved.
5. Add the beans and pound them four or five times, just enough to split them open.
6. Add the tomatoes and press them gently so they release their juice without disintegrating.
7. Pile in the shredded papaya.
8. Pound lightly with one hand while turning the salad up from the bottom with a spoon in the other, about twenty strokes in total.
9. Taste a strand and adjust the dressing until sour and salty dominate with sweetness just behind.
10. Tip everything onto a plate, pour over any dressing left in the mortar, and scatter the remaining peanuts.