Isan-Style Som Tum with Yardlong Beans and Crushed Peanuts

• 2 cup green papaya, shredded into thin julienne
• 10 yardlong beans (snake beans), trimmed and cut into 2-inch pieces
• 8 cherry tomatoes, halved
• 3 garlic cloves, peeled
• 3 Thai bird's eye chilies, whole
• 3 tbsp fresh lime juice
• 2 tbsp palm sugar, finely grated
• 2 tbsp fish sauce substitute, thin soy sauce or vegan fish sauce
• 1/4 cup roasted peanuts, unsalted
• 1 tbsp salted preserved radish, rinsed and squeezed dry

1. 1

   Pound the garlic and bird's eye chilies in a clay mortar with a wooden pestle until you have a rough paste — three chilies gives you a solid medium-hot that builds at the back of your throat. Add the yardlong beans and pound lightly to bruise them, just enough to crack the skins so they absorb the dressing.

2. 2

   Add the cherry tomatoes and give them a gentle crush with the pestle — you want them burst and juicy, not obliterated into pulp. This is where people get overzealous and turn everything to mush, so hold back.

3. 3

   Add the lime juice, palm sugar, and thin soy sauce. Stir with a spoon and pound a few more times to dissolve the sugar. Taste the dressing in the mortar — it should hit sour first, then salty, then sweet, with heat arriving last. Adjust lime or sugar before the papaya goes in.

4. 4

   Add the shredded green papaya and roasted peanuts. Use the pestle to press the papaya into the dressing while simultaneously tossing with a spoon in the other hand — this two-handed technique is called pok pok and it's the whole point of the dish. You're bruising the papaya to open it up, not smashing it.

5. 5

   Fold in the salted preserved radish now for an umami punch that stands in for dried shrimp. The fermented depth it adds is what makes people forget there's no fish anything in here.

6. 6

   Toss everything one final time and serve immediately. The papaya starts softening within ten minutes and you lose the snap that makes this salad worth eating, so don't let it sit around.

7. 7

   Plate it in a shallow pile so the peanuts and tomato halves stay visible on top. Umami does the work here — the dressing clings to every strand of papaya if you've bruised it properly.

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