Tam Som-O (ตำส้มโอ)-Pomelo Salad

I love pomelo. The sweeter and much larger cousin of a grapefruit, it's so refreshing and has been one of my favourite fruits for as long as I can remember! I used to only be able to have in when visiting Thailand, and would eat it faster than my aunts could peel it. I remember being so excited the first time we found it in the regular supermarket in the UK and reasonably priced - pomelo for days!

My mum gave me this recipe last year when I bought so much pomelo and it served as a good excuse to eat pomelo for dinner. I like it with coconut rice because I enjoy the contrast of the richness of coconut with the freshness of the salad. Add something deep fried and crunchy like my mum's Moo Tod and you have a beautiful meal!

For the salad sauce:

• 1 finely sliced lemongrass

• 1 clove minced garlic

• 1 finely sliced chilli (or more to taste)

• 1 tsp palm sugar (light brown sugar is fine)

• 2 tsp fish sauce

• juice of 1 lime

• 1/2 tsp shrimp paste (use more fish sauce if you don't have this)

• 1/4 cup dried shrimp

• 200 g pomelo

• 7 king prawns

-Soak the dried shrimp in boiled water to rehydrate.

-Combine the sugar, fish sauce, lime juice and shrimp paste until smooth.

-Mix lemongrass, garlic and chilli.

-Squeeze out the excess water from the rehydrated shrimp, add to sauce.

-Add pomelo pieces and king prawn, mix until well combined.

-Enjoy!

Note: "tam" means "pound". So traditionally you would make this salad using a pestle and mortar. If you want to do this, I recommend this order: (whole) garlic-chilli-lemongrass-shrimp paste-palm sugar-dried shrimp-lime juice-fish sauce-pomelo-king prawns.