Virtually fat-free and crazy addictive, Som Tam Thai salad, with Granny Smith Apple
SOM TAM COMES IN MANY SHAPES AND STYLES… ALL OF WHICH WILL EVENTUALLY COMPEL THEIR SUBJECTS TO SUCCUMB TO INEVITABLE ADDICTION
The other day as I watched again, sneering, yet another TV documentary made in the frantic, nation-wide hunt for the next revolutionary diet that is going to save America from drowning in its own fat — the Atkins, the keto, the 5:2, the Paleo, the HCG, the Zone, the Jenny fucking Craig, you name it — I reached down to my bag of kettle-cooked Texas BBQ potato chips with a grin before I glanced at the clock in wrenching gasps. Holy mother of god it’s past 9 o’clock?! the feeding window has closed on my 16:8 intermittent fasting diet!
We all do it. We all do it. Twitching and turning in an endless cycle of struggles in order to stay in the balance between emotional sanity and the general shape of a socially acceptable humanoid. So much deliciousness, so little fat cell allowance. It’s almost as integral a part of the First World Problems as knowing how not to lose it when asking “What do you mean there’s no wi-fi?” at a beachside cafe on a Caribbean island. I get it.
Having said that, I have to admit my general confusion at America’s difficulty in meeting such task, the final switch from consuming overly processed foods to fresh produce or simply just freshly prepared foods. I feel this way because I think deep down, I know the answer to this question. Deep down, I know how to save us all.
America just has to eat as good as A Third World country.
Look, I think we have grown so privileged, so involved with exhausting the last possible way to pair caviar with fried wagyu steaks or stuffing lobsters into a pig that we have, perhaps irreversibly, forgotten how to make poor foods taste good. Not poor foods as in fast foods, but cooking with cheaper ingredients such as vegetables that is a major part of the diet in less privileged countries where meats are considered a luxury, where eating vegetables is not a choice, but a necessity, and as a result, where they taste really, really, really good, because they have to.
Take Thailand for example, where they have taken a virtually fat-free salad to the brim of an art form — som tam, or better known as Thai green papaya salad. Som tam comes in many shapes and styles, depending on the region, ranging from mild and friendly to deeply funky and challenging to the foreign tongue, all of which will eventually compel their subjects to succumb to inevitable addiction. Consider som tam Thai, the focus of our current interest, as the gateway drug.
Without the use of deeply fermented crabs or fishes like its other peers, som tam Thai is as friendly to the untrained tongues as it is delicious. A mixture of ruptured chilis and garlics, bruised tomatoes and green beans with thinly shredded green papaya, and an acutely savory, sweet and tangy dressing, all pounded under the gentle urgency of a wooden mallet, ushering them onto the way to becoming something greater than the sum of its parts. Perhaps its greatest wisdom is standing against the western practice of keeping the vegetables as un-wilted and perky as humanly possible in a salad, knowing that the partial breaching of their exterior defenses allows the exchange and absorbance of flavors to deepen. Practically fat-free but incredibly robust, a celebration between a spectrum of textures, a push for the limit of human sensory, burning, salty, sweet, crunchy, sour, som tam Thai has boldly gone where no American vegetables have gone before. The only thing standing in our way is perhaps that its main ingredient, green papaya, is somewhat of a tropical monopoly. But please rejoice in knowing that it works just as beautifully with Granny Smith apples that are more abundant to us than we know what to do with.
So people, put down your kale salad and eat this one. Feel alive again. And maybe once in awhile, go get some fried chicken. Just not a whole bucket. You see. It’s not that complicated.
Ingredients
- 2 tbsp (32 grams) seedless tamarind pulp
- 3 tbsp boiling water
- 1/4 cup fish sauce
- 3 tbsp dark brown sugar
- 2 tbsp lime juice
- 2 tbsp dried shrimps (see note *)
- 5.3 oz (150 grams) extra fine haricot verts, or fresh green beans if unavailable
- 2 medium-size Granny Smith apples
- 2 cloves of garlics, peeled
- 2 Thai red chili
- 8 cherry tomatoes
Instructions
- PREPARE DRESSING: In a blender or the tall cup that comes with immersion blender, soak the seedless tamarind pulp with 3 tbsp of boiling water for 10 minutes until softened (Meanwhile, you can prepare Step Two). Once softened, add fish sauce, dark brown sugar, and lime juice (reserve the lime rinds for later), blend until the mixture is extremely smooth. The dressing is enough for two salads. If you'd like, you can also make a larger batch and keep in an air-tight jar in the fridge until needed.
- Saute dried shrimps with 2 tsp of canola oil in a skillet over medium-high heat until lightly browned, set aside. (If you don't mind raw beans, you can skip the next step. But I like to take the raw edge off of the haricot verts). Wash and cut the haricot verts into 2 1/2" segments. Add 1/4 cup of water to a shallow skillet and bring to a boil over medium-high heat, add the haricot verts, cover the pot, and cook for about 1 minute until cooked. Shock in iced water until completely cooled down, set aside.
- Peel the Granny Smith apples, then slice each sides into very thin slices, then cut again into very thin strips. If you want to keep then from oxidizing, you can submerge them in salted water. With a large mortar, add garlics, Thai red chili, and the reserved lime rinds (I used lemon because I didn't have enough lime), pound the garlics and remove the skins, and continue pounding until the ingredients are smashed to small pieces (but not ground). Add the dried shrimps and pound again, not to grind it but just to release their flavors. Add the cherry tomatoes and pound ruptured and broken. Add the haricot verts and pound each beans are cracked and bruised. Finally, add the apple strips (drained well if previous soaked) and 3 1/2 tbsp of the dressing, and mix well *(I had to transfer into a large bowl because my mortar wasn't big enough). The salad should taste quite heavily seasoned and robust.
- Som Tam usually has crushed roasted peanuts in them. I'm not a big fan. But you can do that if you want to. Serve the salad with steamed sticky rice or just as is as I do.
Notes
* Dried shrimps can be found in almost every Chinese grocery stores or Chinatown. Nowadays they can be easily sourced online as well. Keep them in a zip-lock bag in the freezer and they last an eternity.
Dchan
09.11.2018at9:57 PMI just moved to Central America and am already struggling with two issues: missing Thai food and figuring out how to cook my food and not gain even more weight when all anyone seems to eat around here are beans rice and tortillas. Oh yeah and meat sometimes. Bc I brought my own bottle of fish sauce, and surprisingly little dried shrimp are easy to find, I can totally make this salad. Thanks so much! Sidebar: why are Granny Smiths so ubiquitous, the world over? What the hell does anyone do with them anyway?
Ele
09.12.2018at4:45 AMA funny but also a good post and the dish looks amazing -coming into spring and summer here so will make this soon – yum! Thanks
Dawn Barnhart
09.12.2018at10:05 AMHI Mandy – I LOVE papaya salad! If I wanted to use papaya, is the amount as same as the apples? Thanks for another great dish :)
mandy@ladyandpups
09.12.2018at12:41 PMDawn, I did increase the green bean ratio compared to traditional som tam. So you can maybe reduce the green beans by 1/2, and replace it with papaya. I’m not sure how big green papaya is so I can’t say how many to use though.
nina
09.12.2018at5:40 PMbeautifully written and so true…eat everything just not a whole bucket of it.
favorite salad of mine.
Hannah
09.16.2018at12:20 AMLong time lurker, first time commenter, just coming out of the shadows to say YES. I love this, and you for writing this so eloquently. Your blog is a bright, bold voice in the largely homogeneous blogosphere these days. Thank you.
Sally - My Custard Pie
09.16.2018at12:51 AMDived head first into the sensory experience that’s your food writing and came up hungry yet again. Wholeheartedly agree about the first world adopting some principles of countries where food is scarce (including not wasting it).
Emmeline
09.17.2018at3:44 PMGreat idea to replace the papaya with green apples! Definitely trying it out.
Alan Spedding (cumbriafoodie)
09.17.2018at5:39 PMThere`s sooooo many variations of this Thai classic. I`ve now had 50 trips to Thailand and every time I visit the country I discover another new version.
Sat in a bar with a bottle of ice cold beer a Som Tam salad prepared on the street and a bowl of noodles……WOW , there`s nothing can beat it. Loving this raw apple version so I must make the effort to try it out next weekend. Cheers from the UK .
Nadia
09.19.2018at2:08 AMHi Mandy, thanks for another great recipe! I would so love to try this, but am sadly allergic to shrimp – is there anything I could replace them with that would be similar enough?
mandy@ladyandpups
09.19.2018at2:24 AMNadia, you can omit them for a slightly less complex flavors but still delicious I think. I can’t think of a substitute though cuz dried shrimps are quite unique.
Kath
09.19.2018at3:51 AMNadia and Mandy, I’ve also got the crustacean allergy, would a salted anchovy do? I’ve never tried a dried shrimp so can’t compare. I usually have a massive wallop of fish sauce instead but always wondered
.
mandy@ladyandpups
09.19.2018at12:16 PMKath, dried shrimps doesn’t add that much salt to the dish in this application, but anchovies will. I would suggest just omitting it.
Nadia
09.26.2018at2:29 AMThanks so much! I’ll definitely give it a go : )
Mali Rao
09.23.2018at6:57 PMHi Mandy!
This recipe is looking really delicious.
I will really love it :)