Easy and Healthy Vietnamese Papaya Salad Recipe (Goi Du Du)

In Southeast Asia, papaya is available all year around. Ripe papaya fruit is commonly served raw as dessert or snack, whilst unripened green papayas are preferred for cooking.  It may be added to soup or pickled or even salad.  If you like salad, papaya salad is good alternative to old boring regular salad. Here is my simple Vietnamese papaya salad recipe  or Goi Du Du. Basically this salad is combination of papaya, Vietnamese herb, poached pork and or shrimp, light vinegar dressing and toasted coconut.

Green papaya usually sold at Vietnamese grocery store or other oriental market or Latino market. Even big chain store such as wallmart sometime carry it.  

Fixing this salad is very easy. The most important thing is balancing the taste of salty, sweet, sour and sweet. You can add carrots if you like to add flavor and color. This salad is very low in fat, carb and sodium, yet high in fiber. 

Ingredients:

1 green papaya (1 1/2 to 2 lbs)

3 tsp salt

2 tsp sugar

8 oz shrimps, peeled and deveined

4 oz pork loin

4 tbsp chopped Vietnamese coriander or cilantro

3 tbsp crushed roasted peanut

Dressing:

1/2 cup lime juice

3 tbps fish sauce

1/4 cup sugar

1 garlic, finely minced

3 Thai red chili, finely minced

1. Peel the papaya and cut off the stem. Divide papaya into four. Use spoon to scoop out the seeds and discard it. Use food processor and shred it finely.
2. Put shredded papaya in a mixing bowl, add sugar and salt. Use your hands to mix and massage the sugar and salt into the papaya. Let stand for about 10 minutes. Then, place papaya in a colander and rinse it under running water to remove salt and sugar. Set aside to drain.
3. To drain excess moisture from papaya, place papaya in dish paper towel, wrap it with double or triple towels and then roll it up. When it's completely drain, put the papaya in a large bowl.
4. In a small bowl, combine and stir all of the dressing ingredients until the sugar dissolves. Set aside.
5. In a small saucepan, fill it half full with water. Bring it to boil over high heat, then add the shrimps. Immediately remove the saucepan from heat and let stand for 5 minutes or until the shrimps are turning pink and have shrinked/curled. Lift them out with small skimmer and set aside to cool. Do not throw the water. We are going to use it for poaching the pork.
6. Trim any excess fat from pork. Reheat the water in saucepan (shrimp broth from poaching) into boiling point then add your pork. When the water is bubbling, remove it from heat and cover for about 25 minutes. Remove and drain pork. Set aside to cool. You can save the stock for another cooking use. Then cut pork into matchstick size.
7. Add pork, shrimps and chopped cilantro to the bowl containing papaya. Pour on the dressing and toss to combine evenly. Taste and adjust the flavor to balance salt, spicy, sour and sweet. Transfer to serving plate or platter and sprinkle it with crushed roasted peanut.