Peel the carrots and cucumbers with a Thai papaya peeler, vegetable julienne peeler or mandoline. Or if you are desperate and don’t have any of these, you can cut the veggies with a knife into pieces similar to the ones in the pic.

In your mortar and pestle, pound the garlic and chilies until it becomes a paste. Add in the carrots, green beans, lime, fish sauce, tamarind and sugar to taste.

Pound the beans and carrots until they have softened some, but still hold their shape, and then add in the tomatoes, and peanuts. Use a spoon to scoop up the ingredients on the bottom to get them to the top when pounding. Just pound until the tomatoes’ juice is coming out, but they still hold their shape, and everything is mixed up. 

Add the cucumbers, and mix it up. Taste it, and add more fish sauce, lime and sugar to taste. I like to have lime as the leading flavor with a savory, slight sweetness backing it up.

If you are using shrimp, boil them for about 30 seconds until cooked and then mix them up into the dish at the end.

Enjoy!