Thai Tea

Thai Tea, a set on Flickr.

 A visit to Chung Wah in search of green papaya resulted in me taking a trip down memory lane.  I remember eating these fish balls whilst living in Brunei aged about 7 or 8.  Every time I've been in Chung Wah I've wanted to buy some and this time I did!  With a big bottle of sweet chilli dipping sauce to go with them...msg-tastic.
The fish balls possess a rather unique texture, kind of like surimi (fish sticks) but not quite,  Biting into them is not unlike biting into a frankfurter sausage, the same "skin pop" sensation, with a dense and smooth inside.  I'm selling it to you, non?
I was delighted to find I had remembered texture and flavour (spicy and fishy) accurately, and thoroughly enjoyed eating them.  The boy wasn't so sure about them, he claimed, although he still scoffed the lot.
The green papaya?  Yippee!  We found one.  I wanted one to make Som Tum, my new favourite Thai salad, recipe to follow.  I got a bit of a shock when I got to the cash register though, the lovely lady who owns Chung Wah put this bad boy on the scales and it clocked in at over £6!  Could I have used a marrow instead?  No, not really...

To me, Som Tum is the epitome of Thai food.  The sweet, sour, salty, fishy, spicy balance is close to perfection.  A wonderful mix of textures too.  You need (per person):
1 small green papaya
1 tsp palm sugar
a pinch of chopped garlic
a pinch of chopped red bird's eye chilli
5 french beans halved lenghthways
a few roasted peanute, coarsley chopped
a pinch of chopped, dried shrimp
1 tbsp of fish sauce
1 tbsp of tamarind water
4 cherry plum tomatoes, halved
juice of 1 lime.
I got everything in Chung Wah.  You can make tamarind water by soaking a lump of tamarind pulp the size of a tangerine in 150ml warmish water, then agitating the pulp with your fingers until the seeds are released.  Drain it through a sieve and the resulting liquid is tamarind water. 
Peel the papaya and shred it using a mandolin, or large sharp knife.  We bought a mandolin especially for this purpose (£12, Lakeland) and I shredded my thumb too!
Discard the core and seeds of the fruit.  Put the shredded papaya in a bowl.
Put the garlic, chilli and green beans in a mortar and bruise lightly with a pestle.
Add the sugar (moistened with a little water), peanuts, shrimp, fish sauce, tamarind water and lime juice and bruise everything again.  Think muddling a mojito.
Pour this mixture over your shredded papaya, mix well and serve at once! 

Thanks to Rick Stein for the recipe.
I'm making this again tomorrow.  Trancendental.
We also made Cambodian marinated beef with a lime and black pepper dipping sauce, but that's another story...