Cafe Liz

Thai papaya salad

It’d been a while since we dared to enter the Carmel Market on a late Friday afternoon. At that hour the shook is packed, so crowded you can barely move. The first sign it was late in the day (as if we needed one) was when I went to my greens guy and asked for a head of lettuce. He gave me four. Four heads of fluffy, curly lettuce. They filled an entire grocery bag. I guess he likes me as much as I like him.

As Eitan wilted in the heat, we cut a quick retreat down a side alley, coincidentally (or not) passing one of the far-east specialty stands. Among the many things that require cooking and the sundry strange gourds was a pile of green papayas — green, crunchy, watery papayas, which get chilled and grated into refreshing, Thai salads. I snatched one. Continue reading Thai papaya salad …

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Julienned vegetable salad with wakame seaweed

This dish, with the cucumbers, carrots and wakame, resembles something I once had at a Japanese restaurant, but the green papaya is my own addition. I happened to have one sitting around, since I’ve been aspiring to make a spicy Thai papaya salad pretty much since we returned from Thailand. The papaya doesn’t add much in the way of flavor, but it does have a crunchier, firmer texture than the other vegetables. For some reason, I really enjoy the texture [...]

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