Tomato & Plum Salad with Green Nahm Yum
This one is on at Farang right now, built for the few weeks of the year when British plums and the last of the tomatoes overlap. The plums are firm and sharp-sweet, the tomatoes are heavy with juice, and the late green ones are still hard and tart enough to bite back. The beef tomatoes go cut-side down on a screaming hot grill first. That softens them, takes the raw edge off and gives you something smoky and slightly warm against cold fruit and a green nahm yum that’s sour, salty and properly hot. Make it to order. Once it’s dressed, the clock is ticking.
Spicy Tomato & Plum Salad with Green Nahm Yum
Serves: 4 as a starter or side | Prep: 30 mins | Cook: 10 mins
Ingredients
For the green nahm yum:
4 Thai garlic cloves, peeled (or 2 regular cloves)
2 coriander roots, scraped clean
2 green bird’s eye chillies
2 long green chillies, deseeded
1 lemongrass stick (tough outer layers removed, roughly chopped)
2 tbsp soft palm sugar
3 tbsp fish sauce
3 tbsp lime juice (about 2 limes, squeezed fresh, never bottled)
For the salad:
2 beef tomatoes, halved
1 tsp neutral oil
2 Thai shallots, thinly sliced
1 tbsp lemongrass (tender inner part only, finely chopped)
2 ripe plums (firm-ripe, stoned and cut into wedges)
200g mixed red and green cherry tomatoes, halved
1 small handful mint leaves
1 small handful coriander leaves and a few tender stems
6 to 8 betel leaves, torn (Thai grocers; if you can’t find them, use extra mint)
1 small handful lollo verde leaves (left whole-ish, not shredded)
To finish:
2 to 3 tbsp roasted rice powder (khao khua, see Chef’s notes)
2 tbsp makrut lime leaves, finely julienned (about 4 leaves)
2 tbsp crispy garlic (shop-bought or homemade)
Method
Make the nahm yum. Pound the garlic, coriander roots, both chillies and the chopped lemongrass in a pestle and mortar to a rough paste. Add the palm sugar and work it in until it dissolves; if you skip this, you’ll get grit in the dressing. Stir in the fish sauce and lime juice and taste. Heat should hit first, then sour and salty, with the sweetness sitting underneath rather than leading. Add fish sauce if it’s flat, lime if it’s dull, a little more sugar if the sourness is making you wince. Scrape it into a bowl. Don’t bother washing the mortar, because whatever’s left in it is going into the salad anyway.
Get a plancha, griddle or grill pan properly hot, hot enough that a drop of water skitters off it. Lightly oil the cut sides of the beef tomatoes and lay them cut-side down. Leave them alone. You want a deep char and flesh that has slumped and softened but still holds its shape. If the pan isn’t hot enough or you keep poking them, they steam, collapse and you’ve made passata. Lift them off, let them cool for a few minutes, then cut into chunky wedges.
Halve the cherry tomatoes and slice the shallots thinly. Chop the lemongrass finely, using only the pale, tender inner part, because the woody outer layers are like chewing a broom. Pick the mint and coriander, tear the betel leaves and keep the lollo verde in bite-sized pieces.
Put the shallots and lemongrass into a wooden mortar with 2 tbsp of the nahm yum and bruise them gently with the pestle. You’re softening the shallots and getting the lemongrass to give up its oils into the dressing, not making a paste. A few light knocks and a turn with the spoon is plenty. If all you have is a heavy granite mortar, do this in a big bowl with the back of a spoon instead.
Add the plum wedges and cherry tomatoes and turn them through with the pestle and a spoon to coat. Add the grilled beef tomato last and carefully, so the wedges stay chunky and in one piece.
Add the mint, coriander and betel leaves, then the lollo verde. Add the rest of the nahm yum a spoonful at a time, tossing as you go, until everything is spicy and glossy but not sitting in a puddle. One final gentle toss.
Taste before you plate, and do it properly: one bite with plum, tomato and herb together. It should be hot first, then sharp, then sweet. If it’s lacking salt, acid or heat, add more dressing. If the plums were under-ripe and it’s too sour, add a small pinch of sugar.
Pile it into a wide bowl and scatter over the roasted rice powder, lime leaves and crispy garlic. The rice powder goes on last so it stays nutty and crunchy, because it turns claggy once it sits in the dressing. Serve straight away, while the grilled tomato is still faintly warm against the cold fruit.
Chef’s notes
This is best made to order, and I mean that. Once the dressing hits, the salt starts pulling water out of the tomatoes and the herbs start to wilt. Ten minutes later you’ve got a bowl of soup with sad leaves in it. Do all the prep and the grilling ahead, keep it in the fridge, and dress it right before it goes on the table.
The nahm yum is a cousin of the one in my Grilled Lobster with Thai Nahm Yum. That version has orange juice through it, which makes it rounder and sweeter. Here I keep it green and sharp because the plums are already bringing the sweetness. It’s best made on the day, because the lime loses its edge overnight.
Make the roasted rice powder in a batch. The method is in my Minced Chicken and Prawn Laap, and it keeps for a week in a sealed jar. Shop-bought crispy garlic is fine. If you make your own, slice it thin, start it in cold oil and pull it at pale gold, because it keeps colouring off the heat and goes from perfect to bitter in seconds. Some shop-bought crispy garlic is coated in wheat flour, so check the label if you’re cooking gluten-free.
The plums need to be firm-ripe. Soft ones fall apart in the mortar. When the British plums finish, this works with nectarines in summer and crisp pears later in the autumn. The grilled tomato isn’t optional, though. It’s what stops this being just another tomato salad.
Visit us at faranglondon.co.uk. Sauces and pastes for cooking Thai at home at payst.co.uk.
For more recipes, signed copies of my cookbooks are available at Payst: Cook Thai and Thai in 7.
Head chef & founder of Farang London restaurant. Cookbook author of ‘Cook Thai’ & ‘Thai in 7’. Chief curry paste basher and co-founder of Payst London.
Eat it at Farang
Cook it at home, or let us cook it for you. Farang, Sebby's Michelin Bib Gourmand Thai restaurant in Highbury, N5.
Book a table