ຕຳໝາກຫຸ່ງ / papaya salad

Last updated on December 23, 2024
(first published: December 23, 2024)
by Andy Souvanhphukdee

This salad (called tam mak hoong or tam mak hung in Laos and som tam in Thailand) can be eaten either as a snack, often with pork rinds, or as part of a meal. Here is a basic recipe. Use it as a guide, but please don’t be restricted to it. How tam mak hoong is prepared is highly personal. Emphasize the flavours you prefer. Some people like it sweet/sour with only fish sauce being used. Luang Namtha papaya salad is made with crab paste, a locally made flavouring, which adds a very pungent note. Crab paste may be left out or use shrimp paste, kapi.

Ingredients
•  ½ of a papaya, green and unripe; a freshly picked one is best
• 2 large cloves of garlic, peeled
•  3 medium green chillies; adjust the number of chillies and their colour to control the heat
•  1 t for salt
•  1½ T for sugar
• ½ t for crab paste or shrimp paste (optional)
• 1 apple eggplant, either a green or yellow one, cut into eighths just before using
•  ½ medium tomato, sliced into 4 wedges or several halved cherry tomatoes
•  ¼ C padek to taste (or 1 teaspoon – 3 tablespoons fish sauce)
•   2 large or 3 small limes, cut in thirds and seeded
Serves two to four as part of a Lao meal

Method
1. Peel one side of the green papaya with a vegetable peeler. With a flat-bladed knife such as a cleaver, chop a series of parallel cuts vertically into the flesh, as finely as possible. This will be easiest to do cradling the fruit in one hand while chopping with the other.
2. Put the salt, sugar, crab paste, wedges of eggplant and peeled garlic into a mortar and pound until mixed together in a juicy mass (1 – 2 minutes). Add the padek (or fish sauce) and squeeze in the lime juice. Briefly stir together, and then add the slivers of papaya and the tomato wedges. Pound all the ingredients together, turning the mixture in on itself with a spoon at the same time so that everything is thoroughly mixed together. The papaya should be bruised but not pulped, so it releases its taste and can be penetrated with the flavours of the other ingredients.
3. Sample the mixture and adjust its flavour with sugar or more lime or fish sauce/padek.
4. Serve on a flat plate with a mix of any of the following: sticky rice, lettuce, cabbage or other salad greens, dried beef or pork rinds.

Variations
• This recipe is the basis for many gently pounded salads. Instead of using papaya, try shredded carrot, jicama, shredded green mango, santol (grathon), finely sliced cucumber, string beans, Chinese melon or long beans.
• Add dried shrimp with the chillies instead of crab paste.
• Add tamarind paste with the chillies.

Information by Food from Northern Laos (The Boat landing Cookbook)

Video by Luk Lao USA