Pork with Perilla Seeds and Fermented Bamboo Shoots

Pork with perilla seeds is another Naga pork specialty. In the Ao Naga dialect, the dish is called Ak Shi Azü Den Asoba Aon, which translates roughly to pork cooked with perilla seeds. Ak Shi means pork meat and Azü means perilla seeds.

It is a wonderfully straightforward dish built around a few big flavours: fatty pork, the nutty aroma of roasted perilla seeds, the sourness of fermented bamboo shoot, and the citrusy bite of Sichuan pepper. There isn't much going on here, which is precisely the point.