My Green Papaya Salad

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons brown sugar to taste
• 0.8 cup pepper flakes fresh red such as anaheim or hungarian wax julienned
• 1 tablespoon cilantro leaves fresh rinsed (4 roots)
• 2 cups cucumber julienned peeled
• 1 tablespoon fish sauce to taste
• 1 tablespoon ginger fresh minced peeled
• 0.5 teaspoon garlic minced
• 1 cup mango green julienned peeled (unripe)
• 2 cups papaya green julienned peeled (unripe)
• 3  juice of lime to taste
• 2 cups mangos ripe julienned peeled
• 1 cup mint leaves fresh loosely packed (rau ram)
• 0.8 cup pineapple (size of a lady's pinkie)
• 0.8 cup roasted peanuts salted crushed
• 0.5 teaspoon shallots minced
• 1 cup basil fresh loosely packed
• 1  thai chile fresh to taste
• 4  long beans chinese trimmed

Equipment

• bowl
• frying pan
• plastic wrap
• grill
• mortar and pestle
• grill pan

Directions

1. MAKE THE DRESSING
2. Use a mortar and pestle to pound all the dressing ingredients until smooth, pounding each ingredient thoroughly before adding the next. taste and add more fish sauce, lime juice, chili, and/or palm sugar if you want. The flavor's up to you.
3. MAKE THE SALAD
4. Heat a grill pan, cast-iron skillet, or grill until very hot.
5. Cut the long beans into a manageable size for your pan, if necessary, then char the beans well on all sides, about 4 minutes total.
6. Transfer them to a bowl, cover it tightly with plastic wrap, and let them steam for about 10 minutes.
7. Cut the beans into 1/2-inch pieces and return them to the bowl.
8. Tear the basil and mint leaves. Toss together the long beans with the papaya, cucumber, mango, pineapple, long red chilies, herbs, and the dressing. If you have a large enough mortar or want to work in batches and take the time to make the salad even better, pound the ingredients with the dressing just to bruise them and further infuse the ingredients with the flavor of the dressing. transfer the dressed salad to a serving bowl and sprinkle with the crushed peanuts.
9. Reprinted with permission from Eat with Your Hands by Zakary Pelaccio with JJ Goode, © 2012 Ecco