The Indian subcontinent · Volume 19, The Ash Pot, the Bamboo Basket and a Border the Map Draws Wrong
Smoked pork with axone
Nagaland, Sümi Naga
An illustration of the dish, not a photograph of it cooked.
- Time
- 45 minutes
- Reviewed
- Not yet reviewed from inside the tradition
- Cooked
- Not yet cooked and reported
Smoked pork with axone, a Sümi Naga dish and the clearest example in this chapter of a fermented ingredient built to season meat rather than stand alone, documented by Slow Food Foundation Chefs' Alliance chef Joel Basumatari, who has represented Nagaland at Slow Food's Terra Madre in Turin.
As tradition built it
Serves 4. About 45 minutes.
Ingredients
- 400 g smoked pork, cut into pieces
- 100 g axone, cut into small pieces or a rough paste
- 2 tbsp mustard oil
- 1 onion, sliced
- 1 tbsp ginger paste
- 1 tbsp garlic paste
- 1 tomato, chopped
- 1 to 2 bhut jolokia, chopped, or another very hot chilli, to taste
- Enough to just cover water, to just cover
- To taste, lightly salt, to taste, lightly, since axone itself carries savoury depth
- to serve plain rice, to serve
Method
- Cut the smoked pork into pieces and the axone into small pieces or a rough paste.
- Heat the mustard oil, fry the sliced onion until soft, add the ginger paste and garlic paste, then the smoked pork, browning it lightly.
- Add the axone and chopped tomato, along with the bhut jolokia to taste, and enough water to just cover.
- Simmer 25 to 30 minutes until the pork is tender and the axone has broken down through the sauce, salting only lightly since axone itself carries savoury depth without added salt.
- Serve with plain rice.
What a modern chef changes
A natto based axone analogue, hearth smoked pork and a two stage chilli
Rungs 2 and 4
Method
- First, since genuine axone is not obtainable in Britain, ferment natto yourself into a closer analogue: mash shop bought natto lightly, then cook it out gently in a dry pan for several minutes before it goes anywhere near the dish, removing the raw stickiness axone based curries do not want while keeping the shared Bacillus umami.
- Second, smoke the pork on a Big Green Egg as in the previous recipe, for a real hearth smoked base rather than a commercially smoked substitute.
- Third, build the chilli element in two stages, a fresh bhut jolokia or Dorset Naga chopped in at the simmer for immediate heat, and a small spoon of a fermented chilli paste, held 48 hours beforehand, stirred in at the very end for a second, more rounded heat with genuine acidity behind it.
- Fourth, finish with axone, or its natto substitute, added twice, once cooked into the sauce as tradition dictates and once as a small, barely warmed spoonful stirred through at the table, so the diner meets the ingredient's characteristic aroma in two different registers.