There’s nothing I don’t love about this salad. You can buy the frozen papaya at most Asian supermarkets – it’s cheaper and much quicker than shredding fresh green papaya.
Ingredients
- 1 lb 2 oz (1 x 500 g) pack of frozen shredded green papaya, defrosted and drained
- ½ red onion, thinly sliced
- 1 carrot, thinly sliced lengthways
- ¼ fresh pineapple or 2–3 rings of tinned pineapple, cut into 2 cm (¾ in) chunks
- 4 sprigs of mint, leaves picked
- handful of coriander (cilantro), roughly chopped
- 1 lime juice
- ½ red chilli, thinly sliced
- handful of peanuts, coarsely crushed
Dressing
- 3 cloves garlic
- 2 red chillies, chopped remove the seeds for a less fiery dressing
- 2 tablespoons palm sugar or caster (superfine) sugar
- 6 cherry tomatoes
- 4 large glugs of rice wine vinegar
- 2 tablespoons fish sauce leave this out if cooking for vegetarians
How to Make It
- For the dressing, pound all the ingredients using a pestle and mortar, starting with the garlic, chillies, palm sugar and a sprinkle of salt. Add the cherry tomatoes and pound lightly (use your hand as a cover, or you’ll end up splattered with tomato seeds). You don’t want this too fine – pound just enough so there are no huge lumps of garlic, palm sugar or tomato. Stir in the vinegar, fish sauce and a dash of white pepper and have a try: it should be equally sweet and sour.
- Place the papaya, onion, carrot and pineapple in a bowl. Pour over the dressing and stir well, then chill in the fridge for around 10 minutes to let the dressing infuse the papaya.
- Gently stir the mint, coriander and lime juice into the salad, then garnish with chilli slices and a sprinkling of crushed peanuts.