Papaya Salad-Thai & Gujarati!

Thai Papaya Salad

I absolutely love papaya-raw or ripe. Ripe papayas, I love to eat them just like that, sauté them with paprika and cashews or plain smoothies. Raw papayas, I use to make Thai salad or Gujarati style stir fry! We, Gujaratis eat this papaya salad with certain kind of pakoras. I remember growing up, I used to eat this a lot with methi pakoras! Yup, mom always used to make shredded papaya salad, fried green chilies and thinly sliced onions with methi gotas(pakoras).

My red Thai chilies are so good and hot! I bit on one just like that(found out later how stupid that was of me!) and literally started sweating buckets! I instantly thought about making papaya salad both ways and using those chilies in it. I mean, nothing could go wrong with crunchy, somewhat tasteless papaya salad spiked up with red hot chili peppers. For an added crunch, I used roasted peanuts in my Gujarati style crunchy salad with a spicy bite. It was pretty hot with lots of chilies. I just sautéed the shredded papaya in mustard seeds, oil and added a touch of sugar, turmeric powder and curry leaves. And of course, used the salted pea nuts to top it off. I made sandwiches out of Gujarati salad. Just wrapped it up in leftover phulka rotis for our lunch! Tasty!



Gujarati Papay Salad

 Thai style salad was also so good, it disappeared right away from the plates! I might need to use the whole papaya to make just one salad instead if I want to save it for work lunch the next day.

Thai Papaya Salad
Ingredients
1/2 medium raw papaya
4 garlic cloves
2 each green & red Thai chilies
1/2 cup chopped scallions, in 1-in (2.5-cm) pieces
handful of fresh coriander (optional)
1/2 to 1 Tbsp. honey
1-2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1/4 cup lime juice
1/2 cup roasted pea nuts & julienned carrots for garnish(optional)
How to :
Peel the papaya and rinse with running water to remove the acid. Remove the seeds and shred the papaya with a grater. Set aside.

Place the garlic cloves and the chilies in a mortar and mash with a pestle until crushed into chunks. Place the papaya and the remaining ingredients in the bowl and gently combine all ingredients by mixing with the a spoon. Serve cold,sprinkled with coriander and peanuts if desired.