Welcome to Hot Thai Kitchen

Hello and welcome to my kitchen! I'm Pai, a culinary student and purebred Thai. Today, we're going to make one of those iconic Thai dishes that people have been requesting me to share - the green papaya salad, also known as "tom yum" in some regions. This dish is all about those strong, bold flavors that are characteristic of Thai cuisine.

The term "tam som bom" refers to pounding with a pestle and mortar. In modern cooking, it means using oranges or other citrus fruits to add acidity to the dish. In older culinary traditions, it's about dishes that are sour, which this one certainly is! So, let's get started on our journey to create this delicious salad.

Preparing the Papaya

To make the salad, we need a papaya. We'll be using a small, ripe papaya for this recipe. The first step in preparing the papaya is to cut it into thin slices, about 1/4 inch thick. Be careful not to cut too deep, as you want to leave the core intact. Once you've sliced the papaya, you can start chopping it up further into smaller pieces.

To get the right texture for our salad, we need to make sure that the papaya is crunchy and fresh-tasting. To achieve this, we'll be soaking the papaya slices in cold water for about 30 minutes to an hour. This will help to keep the papaya crisp and prevent it from becoming soggy or mushy.

While the papaya is soaking, let's move on to preparing the dressing. In a pestle and mortar, combine three small cloves of garlic - the inner ones are best for this dish. We'll also be adding four Thai chilies, which I'll add later in the recipe. For now, let's focus on crushing the garlic with the side of the pestle until it becomes smooth and well-mixed.

Adding the Chilies

Now that our garlic is ready, let's add the Thai chilies to the mix. These little peppers are what give our salad its signature heat, so be careful not to add too many! The ones I have on hand are pretty mild, but you can adjust the amount of chili to your liking. Crush the chilies into a smooth paste using the pestle and mortar.

Next, we'll be adding dried shrimps to the mixture. These little flavor bombs are what give our salad its meaty, substantial taste. You can find them in most Asian supermarkets, usually refrigerated or frozen. To rehydrate the shrimps, I'll soak them in hot water for a few minutes. This will help them break up and become easier to mix with the other ingredients.

Making the Dressing

Now that our garlic and chilies are crushed, it's time to add the dried shrimps to the mixture. Once they've rehydrated, we can add them to the pestle and mortar along with a bit of oil or water to help everything come together smoothly. We'll be using these ingredients to create the dressing for our salad.

The dressing is where the magic happens, folks! With this combination of flavors, you'll get a nice balance of spicy, sour, sweet, and savory all in one bite. The key is to make sure that each ingredient is well-mixed with the others, so you don't end up with big chunks of raw garlic or unevenly heated shrimps.

Assembling the Salad

Now that we have our dressing ready, it's time to assemble the salad. Take your soaked papaya slices and add them to a large bowl along with any other desired ingredients - such as peanuts, carrots, or beans. The key is to create a balanced flavor profile that showcases each ingredient in harmony.

Finally, drizzle the dressing over the top of the salad and toss everything together until it's well-coated. And that's it! Your green papaya salad is ready to be enjoyed. I hope you've had as much fun making this dish as I have sharing it with you. Until next time, happy cooking!

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enSawaddee ka welcome to hot thai kitchen my name is Pai I'm a culinary student right here in  San Francisco and purebred Thai one no I'm here show you how to make not just any Thai food I'm  talking about those real unadulterated version it's some seriously strong flavors if you want  to know what that's like so with me so I'd be hot welcome back to my Hot thai kitchen the dish we're  making today is something that's actually been requested of me by a few people because it's one  of those iconic Thai dishes I'm talking about the green papaya salad or some phone now as per  usual we're going to take a little time what if some tam som bomb means to pound with a  pestle and mortar like one of these and some means in modern tile anguish it means orange  but in older culinary's high language it refers to dishes that are sour which sums up definitely  is so let's get going we're going to first prep our main ingredients or green papaya now this  is basically a regular papaya that's been picked when it's not yet right so it doesn't have much  of a flavor but it's got a fantastic crunchy texture and it's firm and so refreshing to eat  kind of like a cucumber with much firmer so we're going to first peel this now make sure you have a  really sharp peeler and they're people that like too few things different ways but I like to take  advantage of the fact with my peeler PIOs in both directions down and up so instead of just going  one way I set it like this and I run it around sort of this way so I get the bulk of the peel  off quickly and then you can go and finish off the little bits and pieces that you havethat was the last of it so now all that's done what we're gonna do now is shred this now you  can put this through in box grater if you like but I'm going to show you the old-school traditional  way the Thai way where the box grater is a kitchen appliance it's not always available so what you're  going to do is you're gonna take a knife and you're gonna go chop chop chop just like thisand you're basically making incisions fine incisions and you're nice gonna sort of get  stuck in the papaya just pull it off now this looks scary because the first time I tried it  I thought I was going to miss and chop my finger off and you might so you got to be  careful don't go any faster or harder than you're comfortable so once you've exhausted the surface  area facing you right you're going to give it a toss and keep going with the other side now  making this is really nostalgic for me because in eighth grade back in Thailand we had to do a  presentation in front of our classmates and we had to pick up a topic to teach our classmate  how to do something and guess what I picked how to make some thumb and I showed everyone at the  age of 14 how to make some thumb in front of my class so so I'm just about finished now the  entire papaya has been chopped now we're going to shave it off now if you have a peeler that  peels off a pretty thick layer you can peel you just use a peeler but I'm gonna use my knife so  the blunt end on the board make sure you've got a firm grip and you can come a little closer so  you can take a look I'm gonna shave off a thin layer of this and about two inches or so and  what you're going to end up with is nice little shreds of green papaya and they're not going to  be they're not going to be exactly the same size but that's what you want we don't want  this to look like it's been mass-produced in the factory this is real rustic homemade food  all right it's not gonna be the same and that's what makes it beautiful so you're gonna keep going  now if you keep going and at one point it's all stuck together in a big sheet that means you've  gone deeper than your incisions not a big deal just pick your pápai up again and chop chop chop  some more and then you're gonna continue to do this until your entire papaya is gone all right  so I've got just about what I need here and I want to show you once you get to the core of  the papaya it's gonna be thin and you can feel like it's a sort of you can press down because  the core of the papaya is empty so that's what you're sort of aiming to achieve now I'm gonna  take about two cups for our salad one and then to the rest of it I'm going to keep in cold water and  the reason why you want to do that is because soaking them in cold water actually make them a  lot crispier folk so for tomorrow's salad or even a few days from now your salad will be crunchy er  than it is today so if you want it to you can do this ahead of time for a couple of hours so  good in cold water in the refrigerator and your salad will actually be crunchy er so that's a  little trick so we're gonna set that aside for now so now that we've got our salad where's my  compost we're going to make the dressing now the dressing is where we use our crop or a pestle and  mortar now this is not the right type of pestle and mortar to use for this dish but it's the only  one I have so we're gonna make do and I'll show you in a little bit why it's not the right side  but let's get going we're first gonna have three small cloves of garlic the inner clothes not the  big giant ones on the outside if you're gonna use those just one is enough and we're gonna  add four Thai chilies now these ones that I have are not very spicy that's why I'm adding four but  can add however much Julie as you want actually so in there and we're going to pound this into  a piece alright so here's what we're looking for you want to come closer to see you want it to be  a page now the Chile skins it's not too big of a deal because that's not too spicy if you get a  big bite of it but you want to make sure that the garlic and everything has become a pace because  you don't want big chunks of raw garlic now next we're going to add dried shrimps now these come in  packages like this and you can find them in the refrigerated section of your Asian supermarket  and they are like shrimp jerky they are like concentrated shrimp flavor bombs and it's really  going to add a nice meaty substantial nough stew our salad that would otherwise be kind of light  and fluffy tasting so this is very important so I soaked these in hot water for about three or four  minutes so they rehydrate a little bit and they break up more easily so in go the little shrimpy\n"