Hindustan Times ST (Mumbai) - Brunch
HUMBLE HEROES OF THE NORTH-EAST
While the world chases the magic of fermentation and searches for umami flavours in every dish, North-east India has been home to both for centuries
fresher and much healthier.
Till very recently, most of the fermented foods of the North-east have been ignored by the rest of
India. The smell is too strong; we saw in the film Axone recently.
“People have an aversion to certain food items, which isn’t
says Josie Renthlei, a stylist and home chef from Nagaland who now operates from Madh Island in Mumbai. “Back home in Nagaland, we pound fresh raja mircha (chillies) with garlic, onion and a slice of raw cauliflower, to make a coarse chutney.”
Raja mircha is grown like any other vegetable in Nagaland. One batch of these chillies is preserved for the off-season, which is how the dried and smoked version was born. Its earthy flavour makes it ideal for gravies. Don’t wash them though, or they lose the smoky touch.
BASIC BASE
“Many people in India believe that people from the North-east eat “weird things” like pig leg and fish stomach. But our food is just different. It uses ingredients like tejpatta , garlic, ginger and herbs, which give delicate flavours instead of garam masala,” Josie adds. And hence, the not-subtle-at-all raja mircha shines through.
Fermented yam leaves
The Ao tribe of Nagaland’s Mokokchung district are the earliest known consumers of anishi, or more literally, nuoshi – ‘nuo’ means a particular variant of yam leaves and ‘shi’ means fermented.
But the reason this is more popular than other ingredients is because it’s much milder than the akhuni. It’s not tangy, but adds an intriguing slightly sour-smoky punch to the dish.
SMOKY TREAT
Chubamanen Longkumer, MD of Delhi’s Nagaland’s Kitchen, remembers the lingering taste from when he first tried the dish at the age of six: a slow-cooked smoked pork with anishi, a method of cooking that enhances the smokiness of the vegetarian paste. It is usually eaten with rice, chutney and seasonal steamed vegetables.
Today, he sources his stash from back home in Nagaland, and warns that though the recipe is simple, it’s crucial to cook it for hours. Any shortcut? Use it in a chutney, but that gets tricky, warns Chubamanen.
FOCUS ON HEALTH
“Anishi is odourless and flavourful. Only some ingredients get stronger in flavour when they are fermented. You need to acquire a taste for it to know how flavourful it can be,” Chubamanen says. The ingredients are organic herbs, Naga ginger, king chilli, spring onion, pepper and pepper leaves, basil, chives, tomatoes, yam and its leaves, and kidney beans – all are healthier versions than the refined products, he says.