Whenever I go on a vacation or just in general a trip away from my kitchen, I get those Lao papaya salad shakes. It means I’m craving papaya salad, but none of the restaurants make it the way I like it. The easiest solution is bringing your own papaya salad kit. Recently, I went to Joshua tree on a work retreat and I limited myself to bringing items. I decided to make a kit that didn’t need a mortar and pestle. My papaya salad kit included: a whole green papaya, padaek, shrimp paste, fish sauce, tamarind paste, crab paste, tomato, garlic, lime, sugar, and msg. You can see its a long list to make it. I condensed my papaya salad kit by dividing the ingredients into single use items.

I consider Lao papaya salad thum mak hoong papaya salad as an essential dish on all Lao food tables. The perfect bite is fresh sticky rice used to grab some papaya salad and bing gai grilled chicken. Thum mak hoong is usually funky, spicy, and aggressive in flavor. The pool of papaya salad juice is dark due to the crab paste, shrimp paste, and padaek. If you are lucky, there will be a Lao plum and salted whole crab pieces.