Green papaya salad

Visiting Thailand recently has had a big influence on Jonny's cooking of late - as you'll see in the next couple of entries. 
We're also lucky enough to live close to Ashfield, which is home to one of Sydney's biggest Chinese communities. The quality & freshness of the fruit & veges available are so exciting - & they're so cheap! The supermarkets also stock a huge variety of tofu, sauces, pastes & spices.
To make this salad, start with the dressing. I know this isn't vegetarian. You apparently can find vegetarian 'fish' sauce & 'shrimp' paste, but we couldn't so went ahead as I eat seafood anyway & Jonathan has started eating anchovies again. (Which doesn't explain the shrimp paste but I think he'll just take the hit sometimes for the sake of a delicious meal).
To make the dressing, mix shrimp paste, fish sauce, grounded chillis, garlic, shallots, a little bit of palm sugar & lime juice in a large bowl. This makes a delicious hot, sour & spicy mixture. Into the dressing, julienne half a green papaya and mix in with bean sprouts, tomato, mint, coriander & chunks of puffed tofu. 
Bruise all together in a large mortar & pestle if you can, or in your mixing bowl.
Serve into large bowls & mix through peanuts for a bit of crunch.
I also feel like I should explain that this was made with a very firm yellow papaya as its all we could find this day - but we've since had it with green papaya and I think either is fine.
You can see my salad is topped with some BBQ garlic prawns too but Jonathan's was just fine with only tofu. We served with a Cosmopolitan each too - just trying to recapture that Thai holiday feeling.