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Post by Deleted on Mar 3, 2009 19:53:18 GMT
I was looking for a green papaya salad recipe on the net, and I was amazed at the numerous variations, many of which I rejected in a flash.
This one (for 6 people) seems to me to have the proper composition:
Ingredients
2 limes, juice of 2-3 tablespoons light brown sugar or dark brown sugar 3 tablespoons fish sauce 4 cups julienned papayas 2 cups shredded carrots 2 red chilies, thinly sliced 2/3 cup chopped fresh cilantro 1/2 cup chopped fresh Thai basil 1/3 cup finely chopped roasted peanuts
Directions
1 Note: You can add lime grilled chicken or shrimp and make this a meal. 2 Whisk the first 3 ingredients together. 3 Add the next 3, toss well. 4 Let it stand for 15-20 minutes, sprinkle with peanuts and herbs before serving.
Since I currently have a green papaya in the vegetable drawer of the refrigerator, I am going to have to go into action soon.
Does anybody have any additional comments or ingredients?
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Post by bazfaz on Mar 3, 2009 19:58:31 GMT
I find that lime juice seems to lose its fresh zing if it is mixed in with other ingredients too soon. That is my only comment. There are no unripe papayas available round here. Even tiny ripe ones, at stupid prices, only appear at Christmas.
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Post by bixaorellana on Mar 3, 2009 20:42:04 GMT
Sometimes you have to put the lime juice on and let it set, as that's part of all the flavors melding correctly. I'd say the recipe above would be such a case.
If you hate to lose that bright lime-iness, only put 1/2 to 3/4 of the amount called for on the salad, then add the rest right before serving. You could also follow the recipe exactly, but add some very finely minced lime zest.
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Post by Don Cuevas on Mar 3, 2009 22:31:33 GMT
There were green mangos available in the mercado today, but I resisted buying them, as we were already loaded with produce.
Maybe at the weekend.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 3, 2009 22:33:17 GMT
They had some at my Chinese store, too. Are they used the same as green papayas?
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Post by Deleted on Mar 3, 2009 23:11:24 GMT
And to add to that question if I may, how GREEN is green when using them? I s there a certain firmness they should or shouldn't be?
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Post by Deleted on Mar 5, 2009 3:59:17 GMT
Any answers on the papayas guys?
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Post by Deleted on Mar 5, 2009 6:03:57 GMT
Oh, I thought you were asking about the mangos that had slipped into the discussion.
A green papaya is totally green (on the outside) and very hard, like a turnip.
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Post by Don Cuevas on Mar 5, 2009 10:16:53 GMT
Can I substitute green cucumbers for the papaya? They never seem to have green papayas around here, only mangos.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 5, 2009 10:55:10 GMT
I think that cucumbers might be too watery no matter what. I might try grating white radish or black radish to mix with the carrot, but the taste might be too strong. Actually, I think raw turnip would work, although the taste wouldn't be the same. This might want to make me throw in some thinly sliced apples to compensate.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 5, 2009 12:00:59 GMT
Sorry about the confusion about my question regarding ripeness or in this case unripeness. A couple of years ago I was hoouse/garden sitting for a friend,a wind storm knocked over her papaya tree FULL as in about 40 green papayas.It was during the Christmas holidays and she was going to be gone for a couple weeks. She told me to do whatever I wanted with them. I gave some to a friend and the others I took to Thai restaurant in the hood,they separated them not by size but what seemed to be a ripeness. No one there spoke English so it was all smiles and nods, I just assumed some were deemed more desirable because of a certain "just green enough" or too green.
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Post by hwinpp on Mar 9, 2009 6:11:04 GMT
I'd go with K2's recipe. Eating it with BBQ'd chicken is a classic, if available also with sticky rice (very easy to cook). Other addable ingredients are fried shrimp, the small black crabs that are sometimes available at 'Asia' stores (basically for salt and taste, there's hardly any meat in them) and crushed peanuts (the Khmers use it but haven't seen it used elsewhere).
Green and sour mango can be used but not as a substitute, it'll be too sour. Better are carrots.
A dish done here calls for shredded sour mangoes with basil and assorted herbs, fish sauce to taste and dry, smoked fish.
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Post by bazfaz on Mar 9, 2009 8:33:03 GMT
This business about using unripe papayas is weird. They are unripe so they have almost no taste. There is a certain sourness. It seems to be all about texture. So could I use unripe melons? I am good at growing unripe melons.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 9, 2009 8:45:18 GMT
I am quite sure that unripe melons could be used.
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Post by hwinpp on Mar 9, 2009 9:02:50 GMT
I doubt it. I have unripe water melons, 2 inches diameter at the most, quite often now, they're in season. You would have to take out the middle that sort of liquefies very fast. Maybe try it with unripe winter melons or some kind of unripe gourd?
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Post by Deleted on Mar 9, 2009 9:06:51 GMT
I was not thinking of watermelons when I said 'yes' -- that would be the same as trying to use cucumbers. I was thinking more along the lines of unripe cantaloupe.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 9, 2009 11:44:38 GMT
I would think Honeydew or Crenshaw melons more appropriate because of the coarse pitty like texture of the cantalope rind. Gourd rinds are a bit tough and leathery.
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Post by bazfaz on Mar 9, 2009 15:32:41 GMT
I don't think I would put in the rinds. I have been given a free pack of mixed melon seeds. Perhaps I should try one of them.
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Post by bixaorellana on Mar 9, 2009 18:57:33 GMT
If it's green papaya salad, shouldn't green papayas be used?
Everything else would be, uh, other stuff.
Anybody in Mexico or south Texas should be able to lay their hands on a green papaya. You'd have to do more looking in other parts of the gulf south, but it is possible.
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Post by bazfaz on Mar 9, 2009 21:31:21 GMT
Bixa, sure green papaya salad should use green papayas. But the salad comes from a couintry where papayas grow everywhere. Here we have to adapt. When I took my Thai cooking course in Chiang Mai one of the recipes called for kaffir lime leaves, thinly shredded. I said to the lovely girl who was instructing us that there were no kaffir lime trees where I lived, nor could I buy the leaves, but we did have lemon trees so could I substitute their leaves? Of course, she said. So why not a green melon salad a la Thai?
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Post by Deleted on Mar 9, 2009 22:04:00 GMT
Anyway, I pretty much maintain that if one cannot find green papayas, large white or black radishes might be acceptable. As Baz pointed out, the green papayas do not have any specific flavor but mostly a texture, to enhance the various seasonings and other ingredients.
Frankly, I defy anybody to describe the taste of a green papaya.
Oh, but they are so lovely, and anybody who saw the movie knows what a sensual experience it is to coax the lovely translucent seeds from the center.
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Post by hwinpp on Mar 10, 2009 5:19:52 GMT
I asked about cucumbers last night. My girlfriend said 'can'. But pour away the juices before starting to spice. I'm still doubtful... What definitely works though, are (long) beans. You'll have to pound/bruise them in a mortar first.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 14, 2009 17:00:15 GMT
Today at the restaurant, I saw that "green mango salad" was also on the menu. It was a photographic menu and the photo looked just about the same as green papaya salad, so that is at least one recent question answered.
There were also a lot of Cambodian dishes on the menu, including the of which hwinpp posted a photo the other day. I really wanted to order it, but since for Saturday lunch all dishes are to be shared with my mother, I felt it was better not to order something too unfamiliar. In any case, she quickly gobbled the egg rolls, shrimp salad, scallops with cashews and chicken with basil, so I felt that I had made the proper selection.
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Post by bazfaz on Mar 14, 2009 21:50:13 GMT
On the island of Ko Chang some years ago (before it assumed the status of an unspoilt island) we walked out up a river into the interior. There we came across a small restaurant and sat at a table by the river while a delicious papaya salad was prepared for us (grilled chicken as well). We went back a couple of days later and we were remembered - and given a pineapple to finish our lunch.
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Post by mockchoc on Mar 16, 2009 8:25:23 GMT
It is nice to finish a meal like that.
One of the Chinese places back home would do that with us too.
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Post by jetsetj on Apr 1, 2009 18:20:26 GMT
Happily I am able to get this salad pre-made at local Vietnamese delis here in the Seattle area. It is heavenly.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 1, 2009 20:24:59 GMT
Don't you have an urge to try your hand at it? Just about anything that you can buy gives you ideas on your own possible "improvements," no?
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Post by bixaorellana on Jun 17, 2009 14:45:05 GMT
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Post by lagatta on Jun 18, 2009 11:28:08 GMT
Can the sugar be reduced?
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Post by Deleted on Jun 18, 2009 12:08:12 GMT
The sugar can always be reduced, but one often discovers that if you remove sugar from Southeast Asian food, it just becomes bland and ordinary. One of the things that makes it interestingly exotic to us is the use of ingredients that we would never use spontaneously (although people who use Thousand Islands dressing regularly in North America might even need to INCREASE the amount of sugar to make it taste different).
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