Thai Green Papaya Salad with Shrimp

70I will not confess to sitting on the sofa with a carton of ice cream and a spoon, yesterday.  I will confess to feeling guilty for some unexplained reason and deciding that a light salad would be a great dinner option.  The guilt had nothing to do with a carton of ice cream, because there was no carton.  🙂

Ok fine there was a carton, but only because all my bowls were in the dish washer.

I didn’t only make this salad to counter act the pint of ice cream I almost polished off.  I have been curious about a green papaya salad since I saw it on an episode of Triple D.   When I saw this recipe in Bon Appetit I jumped in the car and headed out to the Asian market for a few ingredients.

First let’s start with the dressing.  You will need fish sauce, golden brown sugar, dried shrimp, lime and garlic.   Whisk everything together and set aside.

A warning, it won’t smell so great at first but don’t let that scare you, it’s really very tasty.

Take 1/4 cup of the dressing and pour over the peeled and deveined shrimp, set aside.

Time to work the papaya.  I had to go to the Asian market for the green papaya because I only found ripe ones at my local grocery store.  Cut the papaya in half, seed and peel.

The seeds look like little popped rice pods, interesting.

Using a julienne peeler (or grater) peel enough until you have 3 cups of papaya.  It will be about half of the papaya.  You can peel the rest and freeze to use later.  Place in a bowl and set aide.

Blanch the green beans in boiling salt water until bright and crisp.

Rinse under cold water to stop the cooking process.

Chop the green beans into 2-inch pieces, add to papaya.

Thinly chop the scallions, cilantro and half the cherry tomatoes, add to bowl.

Now to give this salad a bit of a kick, add 1 tsp of chile garlic sauce.  It gives you that little tickle in the back of your through, it’s good for you.

Now cook your shrimp until pink and cooked through.  I grilled mine on my cast iron grill skillet but any skillet will do.

Add the shrimp to the salad,

top with chopped peanuts and remaining dressing,

toss until evenly coated.

This salad was perfect!  It’s light, crisp, and the lime in the dressing makes it bright and tangy.   For such simple ingredients it has a lot of texture and character, you will not be disappointed.

When Obed got home from work and saw what I had for dinner he made “the face”.  You know the face your man makes when he is suspicious about what you are about to feed him, the “what is that?” face, but he was very surprised to find out he actually enjoyed it.  He said the seller for him as the citrus in the dressing.

Trust me if my carnivore of a husband can eat this and enjoy it, anyone can.

Print Recipe

Thai Green Papaya Salad with Shrimp (adapted from Bon Appetit May 2010)  Serves 2 – 4