In India, there are only very few states that speak hindi alone. People from Bihar speak Bihari, Maharasthra speak Marathi, UP has urdu as well, Haryana – Punjab has Punjabi and the South too has its own languages.
Yet, with Hindi you can manage almost anywhere in India.
Like that, when it comes to food – with the all purpose recipe for dal, you can manage almost anywhere in India. Even in the North East states.
I was quite surprised when I saw this Potato, peas & cauliflower based dal as part of a Nagaland platter online. The rest of the items were totally non-veg, yet this phool-gobi and aloo dal left an impression in my mind.
So, dal is not uncommon, even in North East.
Somehow landed on a tomato chutney recipe from Nagaland. And looking at the simplicity of the recipe (it’s just roughly crushing everything with your hands and then boiling), it looked authentic.
Authentic is a heavy word to use here. What people of an area cook and eat on a day-to-day basis may not be original, authentic recipes of the state. Yet it doesn’t mean that everyday recipes are not part of that state.
The spread I have here is chosen out of the few vegetarian on-line options I had for this state. And as far as authenticity is concerned, I have no idea. I can tell you for sure that in Nagaland, this will not be a meal on its own. It would be paired with at least a couple of meat based dishes!
This is a good read about Nagaland food and another one about their market. Please keep in mind that the Nagaland food is mainly non-vegetarian and the posts have a lot of it.
The Menu:
My Kitchen Trials 
YMMD with that anresw! TX
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Like the others said where did you find these delicious recipes. They are both awesome
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Wherever did you find this recipe? Nagaland gave me jitters almost till the end. :) Lovely picks!
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Potato and cauliflower in dal is quite an interesting addition. That chutney is mouthwatering. Nicely presented mini thali.
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with the veggies in that dal, you can even call it a soup – I would love that on a cold winter day
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Nice write up,yet another comforting platter and love the way you presented the dishes..its simple and elegant…
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Rajani, you are able to find atleast two dishes from each NE state. Great! This spread looks so nice…
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Amazing..this one was a tough one and you have such a beautiful spread..simple yet interesting spread..wow!
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simple and flavourful.. lovely meal
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Now who would have thought aloo gobhi was used in dal recipe? Your dishes though simple look good.
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loved your writing about dal – very nice!! and the chutney looks stunning..
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Liked the analogy of Hindi to Dal, so true. The tomato chutney looks really good. I have to try this Naga tomato chutney.
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Fantastic and can see the efforts u put for searching the dishes, deicious dal and fingerlicking chutney.
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you really found the best of dishes, and they end up appearing so simple…nice one i loved the 2nd pic and going to use that technique for my next d al
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Wow Rajani, I remember going through the naga food on fb and didn’t get to see this..:(..had we known such simple ones exist, we could have avoided so much headache..anyway glad you got some good ones to make..both dal and chutney look good..
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