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| Estimated cost per serving $1.00 |
Hello my Socialites! I hope everyone had a great weekend and getting ready for the week to arrive. Today I had a great opportunity to watch my good friend Mani make her hot and spicy papaya salad. I've eaten her papaya salad many times before and even watched her make it and today I wanted to show you guys how it's prepared. I love seeing a great cook
cook in front of me. And I so happen to have my camera on hand to document her in the process.
Papaya salad is a staple in our eating. We literally will make it as often as we can during the weekend. It compliments all meats such as grilled rare steak, ribs, BBQ chicken, grilled pork nose (yes, grilled crispy pork rinds), any kind of meat. And we also like to eat it on its own but it has to be HOT. The papaya salad you get at Thai restaurants is a dumb down version and is NOT true to what the real authentic taste is.
We love this salad for every occasion for our weddings, parties, gatherings, everything. If we do a get together, we usually will make sure someone is making papaya salad. We never ever get tired of eating it, ever.
Mani's papaya is a balance of hot and sour. We do not play around when it comes to our peppers.
As I watch her prepare the salad, I notice how very skilled and comfortable she is in her cuts and shredding because of practice. She has perfected this recipe to a T.
So the papaya itself is tasteless. People make it differently from one another due to the shredding of the size and length and how fresh the papaya fruit is. When looking for this fruit to make this kind of salad, if it's too soft when you press it, it's too ripe. You want it to be semi- firm. Did you know that fresh papaya has tons of antioxidants and helps prevent arthritis, lung disease, and heart disease?
So thanks Mani for letting me take pictures of you making this amazing salad! I can't wait to learn more from you.
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| First peel the green skin off the papaya (not shown) |
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| Then use a sharp knife to chop all areas of the papaya to loosen the papaya and get ready to shred it |
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| In a mortar and pestle throw in at least three peeled garlic, a few Thai chili peppers (around 10 here), and cherry tomatoes and pound it. Add a teaspoon of MSG. Stir in a few shredded papaya and mix well. |
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| Add homemade fermented fish sauce that contains tamarind and crab. Stir well. You can buy fermented fish sauce in a bottle at the Asian market. I recommend adding in a dash or two of fish sauce to this since this homemade fermented fish contains tamarind and crab and doesn't need fish sauce. |
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| Squeezing lime into the mortar |
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| Keep adding a handful of shredded papaya and stir. Slice in Thai green eggplants. If you have snake beans, cut and add a handful in to this. We didn't have any. |
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| Slicing chives into the mortar and stir well. Taste. |
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| The mortar is made of clay and weighs at least 4 pounds |
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| Fresh and HOT and beautifully colored |
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| Ready for some hot and sour papaya salad? Made vermicelli rice noodles to go with it |
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| Mani's homegrown cluster tomatoes. We use tomatoes for everything in our culture |
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| Kaffir lime leave tree in her garden. This is a huge tree that has to be stored inside during the winter season. This is a crucial ingredient to our many Lao dishes. |
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| Mint bed. We use mint in everything so this too is a must have in an Asian garden. |
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| Jasmine plant. I asked her if we can use this for a dish. She said you use it for natural perfume to scent your house. The flower smells like honeysuckles |
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| Mani picked some yummy tomatoes for me to take home. Fresh and delicious! |
