Traditional recipes

Smoked pork cooked with sour fermented bamboo shoot and king chilli, the best-known dish of Nagaland.

Pork cooked with axone (fermented soybean), whose strong smell and deep taste mark Naga cooking.

An Ao Naga dish of pork cooked with anishi, cakes of fermented and smoked colocasia leaves.

A soft, warming rice porridge cooked with vegetables, greens and smoked meat, a Naga comfort food.

Country chicken cooked with fresh or fermented bamboo shoot, ginger and chilli in a light broth.

River fish packed with ginger, chilli and herbs into a green bamboo tube and cooked in the embers.

Roasted dried fish pounded with king chilli, tomato and garlic into a fiery chutney.

Pork cooked in a dark, nutty sauce of ground roasted black sesame, ginger and chilli.

A simple Naga stew of pork, mustard greens, ginger and chilli, light and full of flavour.

A Sumi Naga dish of colocasia, cabbage, beans and mustard leaves boiled together in a light, wholesome broth.

A very hot chutney of roasted Naga king chilli and tomato, served in small amounts with every meal.

Fermented soybean roasted and pounded with chilli and tomato into a pungent, savoury chutney.

Fermented bamboo shoot pickled with chilli and mustard oil, a sour and spicy side kept through the year.

Glutinous rice wrapped in leaves and steamed, eaten plain or with jaggery and sesame, often packed for the fields.

Smoky fire-roasted brinjal mashed with king chilli, garlic and fresh herbs.

Purple-black glutinous rice slow-cooked with jaggery into a thick, sweet pudding.

A tangy chutney of roasted tree tomato (tamarillo) and chilli, made in the cool months.