Recipe: Carrot Somtum
One of the things I love about traveling is finding international food in unexpected places. Chinese food in Ecuador. Vietnamese food in the Cook Islands. And wherever I am, I’m always looking for Thai restaurants.
I’ve spent years cooking and writing about Thai food with my friend Chow. We co-authored two Thai cookbooks that Tuttle picked up. Along the way, we had some other ideas for cookbooks that were not picked up, on was entirely to Thai salads. This recipe for Carrot Somtum was one of the recipes we developed for it.
The idea came from Chow’s father, who, when their family lived in Pennsylvania, substituted carrots for the green papaya traditionally used in somtum. It makes perfect sense. When you’re cooking Thai food far from Thailand, ingredients can be hard to come by, and you learn to work with what you have.
Who doesn’t have a carrot stuck in the back of the refrigerator?
Even on tiny islands in the Pacific, carrots somehow make their way to us. They’re sturdy, they travel well, and they last forever. Green papaya, not so much.
So this is somtum with a little bit of travel built into it: crisp carrots pounded with chile, garlic, lime, fish sauce and palm sugar, creating a salad that is unmistakably Thai while making room for wherever you happen to be.
Serves 2-4 Prep time: under 5- 10 minutes
Ingredients:
- 2 cups of carrot, grated, spiralized, julienned, or however you prefer
- ½ cup cherry tomatoes, sliced in half
- ½ cup mint, sliced finely
- 2 Tablespoons peanuts, toasted (optional)
For the dressing:
- 2-3 Tablespoons fish sauce
- 1 lime, juiced (2-3 Tablespoons)
- 1 Tablespoon sugar
- 2 small bird’s eye chilies, sliced finely
- 1 small clove garlic (minced or pounded in mortar)
In a bowl add your carrot and tomato and pound slightly with a pestle to bruise.
In a mortar, add garlic and pound. Add chilies and mix. Then add your wet ingredients. Make sure sugar is fully dissolved. Taste and adjust the seasoning to your liking with more fish sauce, lime juice, and/or sugar.
Pour dressing over carrots, add mint, and mix well.
Place on a serving dish and sprinkle with peanuts (optional). Taste and add a sprinkle of sea salt or more fish sauce if needed.
