The name of the papaya salad is Tam Mak Hoong – it means “papaya mixed together” – and the original version is from Laos. You have to use padek, fermented fish sauce, or anchovy sauce. Without that one, it’s not real papaya salad. Green papaya is an unripened fruit. It tastes different from yellow papaya, which is sweeter. Green papaya is not sweet at all. We use it to make salad only. We use a kok, which is like a mortar but huge, and a sak to crush the chile and garlic, and then add the papaya and all the other ingredients. We make this by hand and the flavors come out not too sweet, not too sour – it’s more about the taste of the ingredients. Remember the Laotian tradition is not too much one way or the other. We don’t put dry shrimp, we don’t put peanut – only Thai people do that. We like it savory, vinegary and also spicy, yeah. That’s the way we eat.

Tools needed

Stainless steel chef’s knife

Potato peeler (optional)

Wooden cutting board

Traditional wooden large mortar and pestle

Ingredients

2 cups shredded raw green papaya

1 clove of garlic

3 red and green chiles

½ cup diced scallions

Pinch of salt

1 tablespoon raw sugar

1 teaspoon shrimp paste

½ cup of shredded carrots

½ cup of chopped plum tomatoes

1 cup of chopped green beans

1 tablespoon fermented anchovy sauce (Padaek)*

1 tablespoon tamarind paste sauce

1 lime, cut into 4 slices

*Traditional padaek anchovy sauce is often fermented and cured at home for about a year. You can buy bottled padaek sauce either online or in a specialty supermarket. Many ingredients can be purchased at Jeannie’s closest market, the U.S. Asian Supermarket on Broadway and Elmhurst Avenue in Elmhurst, Queens.

Step One

Wash all fruits and vegetables. Peel outer skin of green papaya and carrots with knife. You can also use a potato peeler.

Step Two

Place peeled papaya on cutting board and strike the knife blade against surface of the fruit to create vertical slivers. Slide the knife horizontally under the slivers to create papaya shreds. Use the same technique to create carrot shreds. Chop your green beans on the side.

Step Three

Peel and chop garlic cloves in half, place in mortar and combine with whole red and green chiles and ¼ cup of shredded papaya. Grind with pestle until ingredients are made into paste.

Step Four

Add remainder of shredded papaya, shredded carrots and chopped green beans to mortar, slice tomatoes directly into mortar and drizzle lime juice over contents, add a pinch of salt, raw sugar and scallions, then grind and mix together with the pestle gently until the papaya starts to take on color of contents.

Step Five

Add shrimp paste, tamarind paste sauce, padaek anchovy sauce, and continue gently mixing and grinding papaya mix with pestle. Add more padaek and sugar to taste, if needed, and serve.

This article is originally published on March 19, 2019.