Normally eaten with a healthy dose of salt, these delicious Iranian plums are in season for the next 6 weeks. I whipped them up Thai-style with rock salt, garlic, maple sugar, habanero, lime juice, fish sauce, scraped coriander root, and plenty of fresh cilantro and mint. Party in my mouth? It was like a green papaya salad on steroids.
Pinch of coarse salt
2 cloves of garlic
1 habanero
1 tbsp dried shrimp
1 lime
2 tsp maple syrup
1 tsp fish sauce
2 coriander roots, scraped
2 dozen sour green plums
Grind the garlic into the the salt in a mortar and pestle to make a fine paste. Next, smash in roots, half of the habanero and the shrimp, until they are equally mashed in with the garlic. Squeeze in the juice of a lime or two, mix in the maple and fish sauce. Quarter the plums and toss them in the sauce. Garnish with remaining habanero. All ingredients can be adjusted to taste and, since they will vary in quality and character, they absolutely must be adjusted to achieve a true balance of sweet, spicy, salty, and sour.
You really want to have fun with it? Toss in more shrimp, finely sliced shallots, maybe a tablespoon of tamarind water, spice the heck out of it with bird's eye chilies. That's where I'm going next, after that I'm going down to spicy hell with a basket of green sour plums and a quarter pint of shrimp paste relish.
