Tom Yam Paste For Dressing

Asked by singsong. Answered on 27th March 2020

Full question

I wanted to make the Crunchy Salad With Hot And Sour Dressing. When I looked up "tom yam paste", all I could find was "tom yum paste" on Google. Would this be the correct ingredient?

Crunchy Salad With Hot and Sour Dressing

By Nigella

Our answer

Nigella's Crunchy Salad With Hot And Sour Dressing (from NIGELLA EXPRESS) is a Thai-inspired salad with a dressing that uses tom yam paste.

Tom yam paste is a paste that is used to make tom yam (or tom yum) soup, a soup that traditionally has a combination of hot, sour, sweet and salty flavours. Tom yum paste is the same thing and can be used in the salad dressing. The name comes from the Thai words "tom" for "boiling"and "yam" or "yum", which means "mix" and usually refers to salads with hot, sweet, sour and salty dressings. We suspect that the difference in spelling is just due to the way the word is translated from the Thai language.