Som Tam ( Raw Papaya Salad )

Thai chillies (bird peppers) ? 8 to 12 (each cut into three to four segments)
Cloves garlic ? 8 (peeled and cut into two to three pieces)
Small dried shrimp ? 2 tbs
Unripe papaya ? 4 cups (juliennes, peeled, two or three inches long, and one-eighth an inch thick)
Long beans ? 1 cup (cut one-and-a-half inches)
Carrot ? 1 (juliennes)
Tamarind juice ? quarter cup
Juice of two or three limes
Fish sauce ? two or three tbs
Palm sugar ? two or three tbs (melted with one tbs water into thick syrup)
Small tomatoes ? 2 (cut into bite-size wedges) or cherry tomatoes ? 12 (halved)
Peanuts ? quarter cup (chopped, unsalted, roasted)

Make tamarind juice with one tbs of tamarind in one-third cup of warm water. Add more tamarind or water as necessary to make quarter cup of concentrate.

Using a large clay mortar with a wooden pestle, pound the garlic and chillies to a paste.

Add the dried shrimp and long beans, and pound.

Follow with the green papaya and carrot. Stir well with a spoon, and pound the vegetables so that they absorb the flavour of the chillies and garlic.

Add the tamarind and lime juice, fish sauce and palm sugar.

Stir and pound a bit more to blend the vegetables with the flavourings and seasonings.

Taste and adjust flavours to the desired hot-sour-sweet-salty combination. Then add the tomato pieces, stir lightly to blend in with the rest of the salad.

Transfer to a serving plate, and sprinkle with peanuts.