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By Ianpassion
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One among the Thai food that I like is the Spicy Papaya Salad, called as “Somtam” in Thai.
This salad originates from the Northeast part of the Kingdom of Thailand known as “Isaan,” but these days you can find this salad almost every town in the country.
Nowadays this salad is one of the most common street food and dining with family and friends. It is easy to prepare, very healthy, and delicious. This is something that you should not miss if you ever visit Thailand and a Thai restaurant in your city.
There are kinds of Somtam that I already tried:
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| Somtam mix with seafood |
Somtam Thale is papaya salad mix with seafood, composed of shredded unripe papaya, fresh shrimp and fresh crab, cherry potatoes, garlic, roasted peanuts, and lime.
Somtam Poo is papaya salad mix with crab; here you have to tell the seller that you want a crab from the sea. If not they will give you a fermented crab from the lake. My wife warns me not to order this Somtam, but this is my favorite.
Somtam Thai is papaya salad mix with string bean, composed of shredded unripe papaya, string bean, cherry potato, garlic, roasted peanuts, and lime. Whenever we are in front of the Somtam booth, my wife asks me to order Somtam Thai.
Somtam Plala is papaya salad mix with “Ginamus” in Visayan dialect, in English a salad mix with fermented fish. I tried this salad for the first time, then at night, my stomach woke me up most of the time, since then I did not try it again.
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| Mixing Somtam in a Mortar |
With regards to how Somtam is prepared, it is really easy. First, you must bash gently all the ingredients with seasonings such as fish sauce, palm sugar and lime juice in a mortar, then spoon all on a plate, then before serving spread over the smash roasted peanuts.
This video will help you understand how to make som tam.
All kinds of Somtam that I mentioned above are usually available at any Thai restaurant, booth food or “karenderia”. What I know there are more types of Somtam, such as mango Somtam, cucumber Somtam, fruit Somtam, and more.
Since we like Somtam, so I already planted papayas around our academy. They are growing, once they start bearing fruit; then we can start making our homemade Somtam.
Eating green papaya can improve digestive health, boost the immune system, protect against urinary tract infections, heal problematic skin conditions, clean intestinal tract, promote, fight infections, and more.
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| My papaya starts growing competing with the weeds around. |
