INGREDIENTS

HARRISON SHARPE believes a good glug of fish sauce will liven up most dishes

My favourite ingredient is something most people have a bottle of in their kitchen that’s about four years old and never gets used – fish sauce. I think people are afraid to use it because the smell is so potent and not in a good way. The reason I chose fish sauce is because it’s such a versatile ingredient – you can use it in everything (and I do). The dish I’ve chosen to showcase is called Som Tam. It’s a Thai salad that’s got lots of big flavours like chilli, lime, dried shrimp and of course, fish sauce bringing it all together. This is something I learned how to make when I was working in a Thai BBQ stall in my early 20s while travelling and of all the things on the menu, this one stuck with me more than anything else.

To make this salad, you need two special bits of equipment that you can easily order online. The first is a mortar and pestle specifically for making papaya salad called a Pok Pok. You can use a normal one, but it’ll be rather unwieldy. The second is a peeler that’s specifically for shaving green papaya. You can use a regular julienne peeler, but again you won’t get great results.

Ingredients

Dressing

• 20g dried chilli

• 60g tamarind paste

• 180g fish sauce

• 100g palm sugar

• 40g water

Salad

• 2 cloves garlic

• 3-4 birds eye chilli

• 60g peanuts, plus more for garnish

• 40g dried shrimp

• 1 lime

To plate

• 45-55g dressing

• 1 papaya shredded

• 8-10 green beans

• 8 cherry tomato

• Peanuts

Method

• Roast dried chilli, peanuts and dried shrimp on separate trays at 160c. The chilli and shrimp will be ready after 5 minutes, the peanuts after about 25.

• Grate palm sugar into a bowl and add the fish sauce and tamarind, stir to combine. Add the roasted chilli to a bowl with the fish sauce, tamarind and palm sugar and allow to infuse for a few hours, then strain into a clean container. This will keep for months and is great with loads of stuff like roasted vegetables or as a dressing for a chicken wrap.

• Peel the papaya with the ribbon peeler. Cut your cherry tomatoes in half and cut your green beans into bite size pieces.

• Time to assemble. Start by bashing your garlic and chilli together to a rough paste. Next add the peanut and the roasted dried shrimp and continue bashing until they start to break down but not completely. Quarter a lime and add to the Pok Pok along with the green beans and lightly bash them just enough to release the juice from the lime and bruise the beans so they soak up the dressing. Add the dressing and mix to combine. Add the papaya and the cherry tomatoes and lightly crush, mix and taste for seasoning.

• It should be sour and spicy with some sweetness from the dressing and of course, salty from the fish sauce. Garnish with more roasted peanuts and serve with sticky Thai rice and grilled meat or fish.