A classic North-east (Isaan) Thai dish is Som tam - green papaya salad. When we visited, a very long time ago, we cycled down the Maekhong and ate it, grilled chicken (gai yaang) and sticky rice almost everyday. Except the times that we had som tour, which, we reckon, is even better. It uses green beans instead of green papaya so it's more appropriate for Tassie.
If you have a Som (the clay mortar with wooden pestle), great! If not you can just toss all the ingredients together like a normal salad but you'll miss the magic that happens when you bruise the veggies a bit.
Start by pounding garlic with chilli and dried prawns (I leave the prawns out nowadays) then add finely sliced runner beans (slice on the diagonal so that the pieces have some length to them) , pound a little, and add tomatoes cut into chunks, sliced red onion and some fish sauce and lime/lemon juice or vinegar. In Thailand, they pound pieces of lime in at the beginning so you could try that.
Now pound and toss (with a spoon) until it looks well amalgamated. Taste and add fish sauce or acid, if needed. It's not traditional, but I fold in Thai basil leaves. Roasted (dry) unsalted peanuts mixed in is traditional. Eat with sticky rice or Jasmine rice and if you want to go the whole way, serve with Gai Yaang.
