Friday, July 08, 2011

Have You Considered Trying New Foods

I like to go through our local farmer's market and taking home something different.  This time I decided to take home this:

What is it? It is a green (unripe) papaya. 

Green papaya can be used like jicama or any firm fleshed vegetable. I cut the fruit in half, scraped out the seeds and then use a vegetable peeler to remove the skin.  From there you can use a box grater to break it down or a mandolin if you happen to be so lucky.  The Passionate Eater has a pictorial step by step guide on how to handle a green papaya.  Once it's prepared it can be used raw or cooked.  If you are going to use it raw you can prepared the salad a day in advance, the papaya will not get soggy.

 For my recipe I used a mix of this recipe and this recipe, adding Thai basil, mint and cilantro to the salad as well because it is ultimately about what you like and what you have one hand - recipes are just guidelines.


 I decided to make chicken satays with black rice to go with the green papaya salad.   The recipe for those is here, I added some GF fish sauce, lime juice and zest to my marinade/dipping sauce - ideally there should be an equal balance of sweet, salty, sour and heat/spice.

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