Myers + Chang's Green Papaya Slaw

This past spring, Bret and I took a really fun cooking class at Myers + Chang.  In fact, we had such a great time at our cooking class that we're signed up to take another one this weekend!  One of the dishes that we learned to make at our first class was a really delicious green papaya slaw that we hadn't had the chance to make on our own yet.  When we decided to make Momofuku's pork belly buns on Saturday, I knew that this was the perfect side dish for it.

On Saturday morning, while our pork belly was brining, we headed off to Ming's Supermarket to get our green papaya and Thai bird chili peppers.  It actually took us quite some time to find our green papaya since everything was written in Chinese at the market!  But eventually, with some help, we found what we were looking for.

While our pork belly was roasting for two hours, Bret and I had plenty of time to work on our green papaya slaw.  First, I peeled the green papaya.  When I was done peeling it, Bret sliced it in half lengthwise and removed the seeds.

After the seed were removed, Bret julienned the papaya.  At first we were worried that there wouldn't be enough green papaya but you have no idea how much flesh there is to this unripened fruit!  While Bret was busy julienning the papaya, I got to work on chopping up three-quarters cup of roasted peanuts.

I also sliced up six Thai bird chilies.  The recipe only called for four but we like to add a little more spice to every dish.

I added the chilies to my Nuoc Cham sauce, which also had the juice of two medium limes, two tablespoons of sugar, two minced cloves of garlic and two tablespoons of fish sauce.  I added the Nuoc Cham to the bowl with the green papaya and the chopped peanuts.

And then came the fun part - pounding.  To make sure that all of the flavors really infuse together, you pound the green papaya slaw together.  We used a small Chinese rolling pin and took turns.  To be honest, I thought it was really therapeutic!  Since we still had to wait for the pork belly to roast, we put the slaw in the fridge, which only helped to infuse the flavors even more.

The green papaya is pretty flavorless on its own but it had a nice spicy and sweet flavor with the Nuoc Cham sauce.  Plus, the green papaya and the chopped peanuts had a nice crunch.  We topped the slaw with more fresh chopped peanuts and cilantro and served it with our pork belly buns.  The crunchy green papaya slaw added a nice crunch to our luscious pork belly buns, and I was thrilled to finally get the opportunity to make this dish! 

Have you taken any interesting cooking classes lately? Where did you go and what did you learn to make?