Papaya salad is one of my favourite Thai dishes. While you can find it in a lot of Thai restaurants, I only discovered it in a cooking school I went to while I was holidaying in Thailand back in 2008 with my awesome fellow naturopath Melinda King.

Green (unripe) papaya has a whole host of benefits. It is rich in vitamin c and enzymes that help our digestive system to break down food and absorb nutrients more effectively, as well as reduce inflammation. It also contains B vitamins, antioxidants, and plenty of fibre.

We had just graduated from uni, and so decided to refresh our adrenals with a holiday filled with eating authentic Thai food, exploring beautiful towns and busy cities, snorkelling through rainbow coloured fishes, relaxing on isolated beaches and caring for retired elephants (that’s a story I’ll tell you more about later).

While staying in Chiang Mai, we attended a Thai cooking course, which is where I discovered the papaya salad. Before we started cooking we were first taken to the local market to collect the produce we’d be cooking with. The stalls were just amazing, filled with a variety of colourful and fresh produce.

Along with making coconut milk and green curry paste from scratch (the former being easy to do, the latter being a real workout when you’re only using a mortar and pestle) we made a heap of dishes that for a while, ruined Thai restaurants for me, as the food was amazingly so fresh and clean, and had such a different flavour spectrum to the Australian version of Thai food.

Thankfully, Papaya salad is so straight forward that I haven’t come across a bad one, and perhaps it’s the nostalgia that keeps me coming back to this dish, but I think the knowledge that green papaya is rich in enzymes that help with digestion has something to do with it as well.

If you don’t have a mortar and pestle you can use the end of a rolling pin to smash the flavours up in a bowl, or even a food processor for the dressing. The tricky bit would be preparing the papaya. If you’re got a zigzag peeler or a julienne attachment on a mandolin then it’s going to be easy, but otherwise there’s plenty of ways you can do it. Even if it doesn’t turn out to look like the traditional long strips (mine never does) don’t worry because it will taste the same however you do it.

Options for preparing the papaya:

1- The traditional way: the papaya is shredded by holding the peeled fruit in one hand, and tapping it with a long knife to make long cuts, while rotating it around. Probably the riskiest method if you’re not steady handed. This technique can also be modified by cutting then peeling layers off. Some people prefer to cut the papaya in half then scoop out the seeds first, but I prefer to keep it whole.

2- Peel then slice: Alternatively you can slice thin strips off with a mandolin or peeler (or even better use a julienne attachment to get the strips automatically), then stack these strips up and slice thinly using a knife. Again, I keep the papaya whole in this method.

3-  Zigzag peeler: This is probably the most practical method, but not everyone has a zigzag peeler in their house (I don’t). If you do, go ahead and use it because you’ll get long strips straight away with the minimum effort.

4- Chop then grate: This method requires you to cut the peeled papaya into sections, then grate using a grater attachment on a food processor or a handheld grater. You get smaller sections this way but it’s probably the easiest method if you don’t have a zigzag peeler and don’t want to risk chopping your hands off using the traditional method.

 

Green Papaya Salad

Ingredients

• 1 green papaya, peeled
• 1 carrot, peeled and grated (optional)
• 6 small chillies (or 2 long chillies if you don’t want too much heat)
• 2 tbsp palm sugar, or to taste
• 1 garlic clove
• 1 tbsp Thai shrimp paste or 4 tbsp dried shrimp
• 8 snake beans cut into 3 cm lengths
• Mint leaves, to serve (optional)
• 10 cherry tomatoes, halved or 2 tomatoes, cut into chunks
• 2 tbsp lime juice
• 3-4 tbsp fish sauce (to taste)
• 2 tbsp roasted crushed peanuts, to serve

Method

In a mortar and pestle, pound the chilli along with the salt, sugar and garlic until broken up and mixed well. Add the lime juice and dried shrimp or shrimp paste and pound further.
Add in the snake beans and tomatoes and bruise lightly, then add in the papaya and carrot and continue mixing and pounding lightly for another minute until the flavours are mixed through. Serve, garnished with crushed peanuts and mint leaves.