In Love with Som Tam

I would say that my 1 week business trip to Bangkok, Thailand, was also a culinary sojourn as well. But amidst the most delicious dishes I have tried, only one fare has kept me craving for more. This is the Som Tam.

Som Tam is a spicy papaya salad that originated from Laos, Issan, and the northern portion of Thailand. When translated Som Tam, means a pounded sour dish. Salad was the most delicious? This simple salad bursts with tones of flavors. Every bite transports you to another time and place. The citrus fresh green papaya felt like summer. Then another bite leads me to the ocean where salted shrimp or crab lends its aquatic juices. Then comes the heat from the chilies, evoking passion and fire. It is also a cornucopia of tones. Though simple to make, the salad mixes sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and umami ("the fifth taste").

Som Tam isn't Som Tam without the green papaya. Use green papaya that doesn't contain any bitterness. The ones I had in Thailand somewhat had a cantaloupe taste, lending its sweetness to the lime-fish sauce dressing. Also, in the Philippines, we normally use fish sauce or patis that is too much concentrated and has an extreme pungency. Thai fish sauce has a mellow salty taste, thus, it does not overpower the rest of the ingredients. You can do this by diluting water with your Filipino fish sauce. Your goal in the end is the balance with all the flavors and tones from the ingredients.

Here's a recipe from Realthairecipes.com, with my comments to help you prepare the perfect Som Tam.

What you would need:

• 1 teaspoon whole garlic cloves
• 2-10small thai chilies, to taste (Be careful as this can cause serious heat)
• 1 tablespoon palm sugar (You can substitute brown sugar.. The sugar balances the heat from the chilies)
• 1 tablespoon fish sauce, or 1/2 teaspoon salt (Dilute one part of Filipino fish sauce with one part of water. I don't recommend using salt)
• 1 long bean, broken into 1.5" pieces
• 1 tomato, quartered
  
• 2 teaspoons lime juice (Don't use any extract or Filipino limes. It imparts a different flavor.)
  
• 1 cup shredded green papaya (Your papaya should look like shoestrings)
  
• 3 tablespoons dry roasted peanuts
• 1 tablespoon dried small shrimp
  

How to prepare:

1. First prepare the papaya by peeling the dark green skin. Then, hold the papaya in your hand, and smack the fruit lengthwise with a good sized knife. You want to create 1/2″ or so deep cuts into the fruit. Do this over and over until you’ve created a good amount of cuts. Then, cut the papaya lengthwise to produce long strips. You can also buy tools which can create long shreds, or even use a cheese grater (the big holes).
   
2. In a ceramic mortar & pestle, add the whole garlic cloves and chilies. Pound with the pestle a few times to mash, then add the long beans. (Pounding is what makes all the difference. The release of flavors comes from pounding.)
   
3. Pound a few more times, and add a pinch of papaya. This helps mix the garlic & chilies. Pound some more.
4. Add the palm sugar, fish sauce or salt and pound more. Make sure everything is well mixed.
5. Add the tomato, chopped into large pieces. Pound more, but not as hard. Add the lime juice, dried shrimp and the rest of the papaya. Pound about 10-15 times while mixing with a spoon. You want to evenly coat the papaya with the juices while pounding the flavor into the papaya, but don’t pound so hard that the papaya disintegrates. Add the peanuts, mix and serve.

More of a visual person? You can watch this Som Tam making video from TryThaiFood.