This Laotian national dish combines four different flavors: sweet, salty, sour and spicy. That's how Hao Nguyen serves papaya salad in her restaurant Chez Dang.
Image: Lena Ganssmann
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Video: Cooking step-by-step, Papaya salad, Laos
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Hao Nguyen: "It's tough to say if I'm more German or more Laotian."
Hao Nguyen was still a child when her family fled Laos for Thailand, and then changed course for Berlin in 1980. Her father was critical of the government, and in Laos, his politics soon became too dangerous for the family. Hao Nguyen spent her youth in Neukölln and fell in love with the district. Later, she would go on to become a foreign language correspondent and train as an alternative medical practitioner, but deep inside she always dreamed of owning her own restaurant. She imagined a place where she could serve traditional food from her home country and which she could design just as she pleased. In 2011, that dream became a reality. Together with her two brothers and a cousin, she opened Chez Dang.
Hao NguyenImage: Lena Ganssmann
Chez Dang in Berlin-Neukölln
The name "Chez Dang" is a hommage to her family and the country of her birth, Laos, which was long held as a French colony. It was clear the restaurant would be in Neukölln since it has become a hip district in recent years.
50 Kitchens, One City: Laos
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Som Tam (Papaya salad)
Serves 4
Ingredients:
1 green papaya (around 400 g)
4 small carrots (around 200 g)
4 heaping T dried shrimp
4 heaping T peanuts
4 small tomatoes
8 Asian snake beans
4 garlic cloves
8 approx. 4-cm fresh chilis
4 T sugar
8 T fish sauce
8 T lemon juice
Preparation:
Peel papaya and grate into fine strips. Wash carrots and grate into fine strips. Wash and quarter tomatoes.
Crush garlic and chili together in a large mortar or bowl. After washing snake beans, break into 4-cm pieces, add to mortar, and crush.
Add all remaining ingredients – except for the sugar, fish sauce, and lemon juice – to the mortar. Finally, add sugar, fish sauce, and lemon juice and combine using pestle. Then stir using a spoon and mix together with salad.
Serve with sticky rice and a cold beer.
Chez Dang prepares papaya salad with shrimp
This Laotian national dish combines four different flavors: papayas and sugar provide sweetness, fish sauce for salt, sour lemons, and spicy chilis. That's how Hao Nguyen serves papaya salad in her restaurant Chez Dang.
Image: Lena Ganssmann
Chez Dang - a family affair
"On paper, our name is Nguyen because that was the name that was put on our papers; it's a common name in Vietnam. But our real name is Dang. Chez is a reference to Indochina, which Laos used to belong to. And my grandfather and great-grandfather worked for the French, as a cook, among other things. That's why we thought the name fit so well." - Hao Nguyen
Image: Lena Ganssmann
A large Laotian family
In 1977, Hao Nguyen was born into a large family in Laos. This picture is from before her birth. Her father was a critic of the regime, so in 1979 the family with four children had to flee to Thailand. Hao Nguyen was the youngest. A year later, she came to Berlin. In the meantime, she has her own family with three children.
Image: Uwe Schwarze
Hao Nguyen was three when she came to Berlin
"My first memory of Berlin were these moments in the home for asylum applicants. Those are my earliest memories. I can still remember a long hallway with linoleum flooring, beds with gates and many other Asian people." - Hao Nguyen
Image: Lena Ganssmann
Som Tam: a Laotian standard
What's unusual about this papaya salad is the method with which it is prepared: all ingredients are pounded by a mortar. Not only the spices and nuts, as pictured here, but also the vegetables and the green papaya are crushed. Som Tam, as the dish is known is Laos, is offered in different variations. Traditionally, it's eaten with sticky rice and fermented shrimp.
Image: Lena Ganssmann
Papaya salad: a national dish for Laotians
"Loatian cuisine is remarkable because of its spice. There are many dishes which are spicy and still maintain their unique flavor because they are cooked with herbs and spices. And I have to say, if you cook Asian, you need many more ingredients than if you cook European-style. And that's more expensive because you can't get the herbs everywhere and they aren't that cheap." - Hao Nguyen
Image: Lena Ganssmann
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Restaurant Chez Dang
Friedelstraße 31
12047 Berlin