Spicy Fruit Salad - 'Som Tum Polamai'

Healthy Food

Spicy Fruit Salad - 'Som Tum Polamai'

Story

“Som Tum” with assorted fruit is a menu that has been adapted from the standard version of this dish, which is made from green papaya. Every Thai household has the basic ingredients for this dish lying about and often, cooks add whatever else is available to the mix, which has led to untold variations cropping up in recent years.

Popular with Thais and increasing in demand among food-loving foreign tourists, you can now order the dish as ‘Tam Ma Muang” (with mango) ‘Tam Makham’ (with tamarind) ‘Tam Kluay’ (with banana) ‘Tam Kraton’ (with santol), as well as the standard green papaya version.

Health Benefits

‘Spicy Fruit Salad – ‘Som Tum Polamai” is a popular dish for fruit lovers. With the same spicy taste as papaya salad, but with fruit cut into crunchy bite-sized pieces instead of Papaya. Most importantly, it also has a spicy flavor that helps fuel your appetite.

‘Red Apple’ helps prevent cold symptoms and contains dietary fiber that helps with digestions.*
‘Green Apple’ acts as an antioxidant.**
‘Grape’ helps fight free radicals.***
‘Chili’ helps relieve cold symptoms and reduce mucus and phlegm.****
‘Papaya’ helps fight free radicals.*****
‘Garlic’ enhances the immunity.*****
‘Lime’ helps fight free radicals, reduce inflammation and repair damaged cells from infection. It also inhibits the growth of the virus.******

Ingredients

palm sugar 28 gr
lime juice 24 gr
fish sauce 28 gr
mixed seasonal fruit 100 gr
- green apple
- apple
- grape
- ripe papaya
cherry tomato 50 gr
dried shrimp 10 gr
roasted peanuts 20 gr
yardlong bean 24 gr
bird’s eye chilli 3 gr
small garlic clove 4 gr

Directions

Pound the bird’s eye chili and garlic, season with fish sauce, lime juice and palm sugar.

Add all the fruit along with dried shrimp and peanuts.

Blend all ingredients thoroughly

Serve and sprinkle with dried shrimp and peanuts (or cashew nuts).

Reference
* “ECPGR Malus/Pyrus Working Group Members”. Ecpgr.cgiar.org. 22 July 2002. Retrieved 25 August 2014.
“Apple – Malus domestica”. Natural England. Archived from the original on 12 May 2008. Retrieved 22 January 2008.

** “ECPGR Malus/Pyrus Working Group Members”. Ecpgr.cgiar.org. 22 July 2002. Retrieved 25 August 2014.
“Apple – Malus domestica”. Natural England. Archived from the original on 12 May 2008. Retrieved 22 January 2008.

*** Wang Y, et al. Effects of different ascorbic acid doses on the mortality of critically ill patients: a metaanalysis. Annals of intensive care. 2019;9(1):58
Hemilä H, Chalker E. Vitamin C can shorten the length of stay in the ICU: a meta-analysis. Nutrients. 2019;11(4):708

**** Vonne D., Ofelia G., Guillermo O., José P., & Tzayhrí G. (2014). Determination of Capsaicin, Ascorbic Acid, Total Phenolic Compounds and Antioxidant Activity of Capsicum annuum L. var. serrano by Mid Infrared Spectroscopy (Mid-FTIR) and Chemometric Analysis. Journal of the Korean Society for Applied Biological Chemistry, 57(1): 133-142.

***** Structure for peptides C01.001: papain. [online] source :. https://www.ebi.ac.uk/merops/cgibin/structure?mid=C01.001 . 9 July 2020 ,
Rawlings, N.D., Barrett, A.J., Thomas, P.D., Huang, X., Bateman, A. & Finn, R.D. (2018) The MEROPS database of proteolytic enzymes, their substrates and inhibitors in 2017 and a comparison with peptidases in the PANTHER
database. Nucleic Acids Res 46, D624-D632.

****** Moutia M, et al. Review Article In Vitro and In Vivo Immunomodulatory Activities of Allium sativum L. Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine 2018; Article ID 4984659.https://doi.org/10.1155/2018/4984659
******* Hemilä H, Chalker E. Vitamin C for preventing and treating the common cold. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2013, 1. DOI: 10.1002/14651858.CD000980.pub4
Asst. Prof. Dr. Ekkarat Bamrungphut, Herbs and Phytochemicals
Herbal Information Office, Faculty of Pharmacy Mahidol University – www.medplant.mahidol.ac.th