Green Papaya Salad

Green Papaya salad is very refreshing & in the heat of Vietnam, the salad is served with a liberal amount of very hot red birds eye chillies. For this recipe I have toned down the chilli content.

Dietary: Vegan and wheat free, contains nuts

Serves: 4-6

Ingredients:

1 green papaya, de-seeded, peeled & grated

50g cashew nuts, roasted

2 garlic cloves, finely chopped

1 red chilli, finely chopped

1 lime, juice & zest

1/2 tbsp brown sugar or jaggery

2 tomatoes, finely chopped

2 spring onions, finely chopped

1 tbsp Thai basil, finely chopped

Method:

Peel, slice lengthways and remove the white immature bitter seeds. Grate or julienne the green papaya into a large bowl.

Roast the cashews.

Chop the garlic & chilli & pummel to a paste either in a mortar or whiz in a mini food processor.

Add the lime zest, juice & sugar to the chilli paste & mix in with the grated papaya.

Very finely chop the tomatoes & spring onions & mix into the salad.

Season with salt & freshly ground black pepper

Decorate with chopped basil & roasted cashew nuts.

Tips: In Vietnam they use a special Julienne peeler to achieve the tiny strips of papaya. You can buy these from us at www.vegetariancookeryschool.com

Green papayas are unripe papayas & they are not at all sweet & have the texture of a firm marrow, but with much lower water content. Green papayas are only available from Asian stores. You could make a similar salad using unripe melon or even cucumber.

Thai basil has a darker leaf than sweet basil & a sharper more aromatic flavour. Thai basil is easy to grow & you can buy it from Asian stores. Otherwise use sweet basil with some fresh mint added.

Jaggery is unrefined sugar made from boiling down the juice of the Palmyra palm. It is sold in lumps or blocks in all Indian or Asian stores and you can grate it into dishes such as curries or stir fries. It keeps for ever in a sealed bag in a cupboard.