Smoked Pork with Colocasia and Axone

Some recipes build flavour with a dozen spices. This one lets fermentation and smoke handle the paperwork. Smoked pork is simmered with axone, the gloriously funky fermented soybean so closely associated with Naga cooking, along with colocasia, tomatoes and enough raja mircha to make its presence known. The colocasia eventually gets mashed back into the pot, thickening the broth while soaking up all that pork fat and fermented goodness. No elaborate masala, no heroic bhunao, not even ginger and garlic. When your ingredients have this much personality, sometimes the smartest cooking technique is simply knowing when to get out of their way.