It's all about the sauce

For first course, we were treated to a jaew bong canapes two ways; first with smoked mackeral on khao khop, the dried fried sticky rice also used to make mieng, then with khao khop bits and radish on spicy seen savanh as the "cracker". Both were deliciously crunchy! Next up were cucumbers served with jackfruit in thum sauce with seen savanh and lemongrass. Because jackfruit has the texture of meat the cool cucumbers textures helped to keep it from tasty too meaty - and thum as a marinade was a great idea!

Moving on to the thum salads, the sour mangos brought out the funkier notes to the Ninja sauce, but that may have been the powdered dried shrimp Chef Deth sprinkled on top. The real test was for the papaya, which held up well and gave a nice red-brown color. Be forewarned if you like your thum mak hoong juicy, we suggest adding more tomatoes as more thum sauce will also make it saltier.

Ninja Foods: Papaya Salad Sauce aka "thum sauce" in mild, medium and hot.