Traditional recipes

Boiled vegetables mashed with roasted fermented fish (ngari) and fiery chillies, the most loved side dish of every Manipuri meal.

A crunchy salad of finely shredded cabbage, lotus stem, banana flower and herbs, dressed with roasted gram flour, perilla seeds and chilli.

A light, brothy stew of seasonal vegetables with ginger, onion leaves and dried fish, eaten with rice every day in Manipur.

A fiery chutney of roasted chillies, fermented fish, onion and herbs, served on the side of every Manipuri meal.

Dried peas cooked very soft with a little cooking soda, rice and spring onions into a thick, mild dish served at feasts.

A Manipuri fish curry in which the fish is lightly fried and simmered with potato, onion and tomato in a thin, spiced gravy.

A savoury cake of gram flour, fermented fish and herbs, wrapped in leaves, steamed and then roasted.

Crisp gram-flour fritters of vegetables and herbs, eaten with a chilli chutney as an evening snack.

Boiled potatoes mashed with roasted dried chillies, onion and mustard oil. Simple, smoky and very hot.

A spicy, tangy snack of boiled chickpeas and peas in a thin gravy, sold by street vendors in Imphal.

A deep purple pudding of Manipur’s GI-tagged black rice cooked slowly in milk with sugar and cardamom.

Soft cottage cheese (paneer) and peas cooked in a light, golden gravy, a vegetarian favourite at Manipuri feasts.

A homely Manipuri chicken curry with potato, ginger and onion leaves.

Sticky rice cooked inside green bamboo tubes over an open fire, a festival and picnic food in Manipur.

A thick, porridge-like dish of mustard greens, vegetables, rice and fermented soybean (hawaijar), warming and nourishing.

Sweet balls of popped rice bound with molasses, made for festivals and offerings in Manipur.

Small sun-dried fish packed tightly into oiled earthen pots and left to ferment for months. The key flavour of Manipuri cooking.

Boiled soybeans wrapped in leaves and left in a warm place to ferment until sticky and aromatic, used in chutneys and curries.

A fermented paste of sun-dried small fish and colocasia stems, a traditional Meitei food also given to new mothers and the sick.

Seasonal vegetables simply boiled with a little salt, served at Manipuri meals beside spicy eromba and chutneys.