Tam Strobori from Northern Thailand
An idea from Phayao’s video
In our Facebook group “Thai Kitchen and its Recipes”, Phayao recently posted a video where she prepared a Som Tam with strawberries and praised it multiple times. This made me curious because Thai Som Tam is usually made with unripe papaya and is more of a salty-spicy dish. I couldn’t really imagine how it would taste with strawberries added to the same ingredients.
Since strawberries are currently everywhere, we tried it yesterday and were immediately impressed. The strawberries create such a strong contrast with the other ingredients that it actually works. The taste is of course completely different from papaya, but its freshness fits well with the current season.
I actually didn’t want to make a recipe out of it and only posted a picture last evening. But I noticed that many people were searching for it. Since I might not be able to refer you to Phayao’s video because you’re not on Facebook or not in the group, I’ve briefly written down how I prepared the “Tam Strobori” for you.
The “Tam Strobori” owes its name to an English loanword, as strawberries are called “Sa Tro Bo Ri” (
Thank you Phayao for this exciting recipe from Northern Thailand!
Ingredients for two servings
- a bowl of strawberries
- a handful of
peanuts - one lime
- 2-5 dried chili peppers
- one garlic clove
- 2g
palm sugar¹ - 3 tbsp
fish sauce¹ - 1 tbsp Plaa Ra (Phayao uses 3, then less fish sauce)
- some mint leaves
Preparation
First, wash the strawberries, remove the stems, and then cut them in half. Next, peel the garlic clove and finely chop it. Finally, cut the lime in half and quarter one of the halves.
Now add the dried chili peppers to the Som Tam morta and crush them - the amount depends on your tolerance for spiciness. Then add the garlic clove and crush it as well. Next, add the palm sugar - and you can probably guess what comes next - crush it too. Followed by the peanuts which are also crushed.
Then squeeze the unquartered half of the lime over the mortar and add the remaining lime pieces, crushing them with the pestle. Then add the fish sauce and the Plaa Ra. If you don’t have Plaa Ra at home, simply use a bit more fish sauce. Mix everything thoroughly with a spoon.
Finally, add the strawberries in smaller portions, gently crushing them but not mashing them completely. I only crushed two of the strawberries to give the sauce some color and sweetness.
Mix the finished Tam Strobori thoroughly. Finally, serve on plates, garnished with some fresh mint leaves.
