By: Danny Mitro

Danny Mitro — Thu, 15 May 2025 02:27:17 +0000

Thank you Pai for this and all your recipes!! I've been cooking Thai food for years, but have avoided making my own Som Tam for a while... (mostly because before I lived in SF and then NYC, where amazing, Lao-style Som Tam was abundant). But now living in Cambridge, I came to the realization that I will have to make my own!
This recipe is good, and I much prefer Lao / Isaan style Som Tam to the regular one. For other Boston-based readers, there's a store / restaurant called BOONNOON Market in Arlington that sells many hard-to-find ingredients, but most importantly: Nam Pla Ra, and *palm sugar in a container that is soft, scoopable, and not dried pucks*.
Some notes from my experience with this recipe:
- I got about 3 cups of shredded papaya from just 1/3 the surface of a green papaya... When you buy a green papaya, be prepared for som tum for days, or have a big family 🙂 As a hungry young man, 3 cups-of-papaya-worth of som tum (double this recipe) was a filling meal along with khao niao sticky rice and some braised tofu
- I'm used to Isaan som tam at Isaan level spiciness. I used 6 chilis (again I made 2x the base recipe), which is the upper bound given here. To me this was a mild som tam, as I believe som tam should be so spicy as to be cerebral. Next time I'll try 10 for the same amount (5 chilies per base recipe). BTW I also freeze my Thai chili peppers which keeps them fresh for long, but maybe reduces some spiciness.
- the recipe didn't say how to replace Chinese long bean with western green beans.. so I eyeballed it. Everything here-- the proportion of papaya vs carrot vs beans, is really up to one. I might reduce the carrot slightly next time.
- I made tamarind paste for this from compacted tamarind. IMO you also really need sticky rice (khao niao) for this! I used Pai's recipe for that-- namely the hot soak + steam. What was funnily convenient is that both the khao niao and the tamarind needed to soak in boiling water for 20 min, so I saved some time.
- I find tomato is quite essential to this and it benefitted from using high-quality, flavor backed ("flavor bomb" etc) cherry tomatoes.
- don't forget to leave lime halves in for pounding
- if I could ever find them, I'd love to augment this with salted crabs, but I may experiment with kabi shrimp paste in the mean time.
Good luck and a merry som tam to all!

By: Monique

Monique — Sat, 25 Jan 2025 03:06:32 +0000

Optional but strongly recommended is 1/8 teaspoon each of shrimp paste and crab paste.
Change to 8-10 chillies and make 1 teaspoon of MSG mandatory and you’ve got a winner! 🤪

By: Matt McLean

Matt McLean — Mon, 23 Dec 2024 18:12:28 +0000

This was amazing! Thank you for sharing!

By: Rick

Rick — Wed, 13 Nov 2024 20:52:30 +0000

In reply to Pailin Chongchitnant. On one of the products you suggested, the description used that phrase (Doesn't sacrifice other seasonings). That is why I used it

By: Pailin Chongchitnant

Pailin Chongchitnant — Wed, 13 Nov 2024 20:30:17 +0000

In reply to Rick. Now sure what you mean by "sacrifice other seasonings" but the Pantai one would be the funkier of the two brands shown.

By: Rick

Rick — Tue, 29 Oct 2024 15:23:12 +0000

Which Pla Ra do you suggest if one likes a bit more funkiness in Som Tum, but doesn't sacrifice the other seasonings?

Comments on: Umami Thai Green Papaya Salad (Som Tum Pla Ra)

By: Danny Mitro

By: Monique

By: Matt McLean

By: Rick

By: Pailin Chongchitnant

By: Rick