Anywhere you go in Laos, you will find women patiently preparing papaya for this salad. Using a small machete-like knife, they make repeated shallow parallel cuts, each about 1/8 inch deep, in a section of the papaya. Then they scrape the papaya from top to bottom so they end up with very nice julienne. A food processor fitted with the julienne disk or a manual slicer such as a mandoline works equally well.
Recipe information
Total Time
30 minutes
Yield
Serves 4 as a side dish or 6 as a first course
Ingredients
Preparation
Step 1
Peel and seed papaya. Cut into large pieces and then julienne. Combine with tomato, jerky, garlic, chiles, and galangal in a large bowl. Stir together lime juice, fish sauce, and sugar in a small bowl until sugar is dissolved and toss with papaya mixture.
Step 2
Mound salad on a platter and serve with lettuce leaves for wrapping.
