Som Tam

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A plate of Som Tam

Som Tam ( Thai :ส้มตำ ) is a sharp papaya - salad dish that consists mainly of mashed vegetables. It is an originally Laotian food that is alsocommonoutside of Isaan .

Som ( ส้ม ) is sour and tam ( ตำ ) means stomp , crush . Other spellings are som tum , som DTAM , som dtum or papaya pok pok ( onomatopoeia for the sound of the ram ), tam som or in Laos and in Isan tam mak hung (Thai: ตำ หมาก หุ่ ง , Lao : ຕໍາ ຫມາກ ຮຸ່ງ means there) mak hung papaya.

Ingredients and preparation

The main ingredients are unripe papaya fruits, chillies , garlic and lime , which are mashed with a pestle. Then palm sugar , fish sauce and Pla Raa ( ปลาร้า ) or dried prawns are added. Sometimes long beans ( ถั่วฝักยาว ), tomatoes and roasted, unsalted peanuts are also added. Sometimes it's also made with fried pork bacon, raw spinach , raw goa beans, or raw cabbage . It is very often served together with ping kai (in Thai: Gai yang , ไก่ ย่าง - grilled chicken).

The dish combines the four flavors of Thai cuisine : sweet palm sugar, sour limes, hot chili peppers and salty fish sauce. It is served with glutinous rice at room temperature .

In Laos and Isaan, the dish is usually even hotter and more sour than in central Thailand. Som Tam Lao (also Som Tam Phu , ส้มตำ ปู ) is the name of the Laotian preparation method : it contains fermented crabs ( ปู ดอง in Thai), while Som Tam Thai ( ส้มตำ ไทย ) is made with small dried shrimp.

Since unripe papaya outside Southeast Asia may be hard to come by, can the court with other unripe fruits, such as mangoes (called tam ma-muang ) and cucumbers ( tam mak Daeng ), but also with carrots , kohlrabi or mung bean sprouts are cooked .

credentials

  1. Bhumichitr, Vatcharin: The Taste of Thailand. London 1994, p. 143.