Som tam Thai salad (green papaya salad)

It is one of those recipes you can leave out the ingredients that you don't have and it will still taste yummy. Like always i did not measure how much ingredient went into the salad so you will have to eyeball the measurements according to your taste.

So simple and so delicious. Its sweet, its sour, its hot, its crunchy and its chilled. A perfect salad for those summer evenings.

Ingredients:
1 medium sized green papaya
1 medium sized tomato
1 lemon
jaggery
few green chilies
garlic
raw ginger
salt
roasted peanuts
dark soy sauce/fish sauce (optional)

We want to serve a chilled salad so first we will make the papaya julienne and keep it aside. Cut the tomato in half and remove the seeds and juice, then cut it into small pieces. Mix the papaya and tomato and store the mixture in the fridge. Making those julienne takes a long time for non professional chef like me but hey, practice makes us perfect!

Next up is our salad dressing. Traditionally the ingredients are pound with a mallet to tenderize them and to make them release their juice. But we will make use of the mixer to make up for the time that we spent making papaya julienne. Ground together few chilies, few garlic cloves, ginger, salt and equal amounts of lemon juice and jaggery in the mixer. Scrape the paste to a small bowl. Add soy sauce or fish sauce if you want to. Our salad dressing is ready.

The best way to serve this salad is dressing it just before serving. This way the papaya will not get soggy and lose its crunch.

Pour the dressing over the papaya and tomato mixture. Drizzle some lightly crushed roasted peanuts over the salad. Mix and serve.