Recipes By Nik Sharma
27 recipes found
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Roasted Lemony Butternut Squash and Brussels Sprouts
For a satisfying side dish, dress your roast butternut squash and brussels sprouts in a sweet, tangy dressing of fresh herbs, lemon juice, and spices.
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Burnt Eggplant and Bell Pepper Dip
This roasted eggplant and red bell pepper dip is rich and bright with distinct smoky notes. It's a party-pleaser that vegetarians, vegans, and meat eaters will love.
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Warm Pigeon Pea Salad With Roasted Butternut Squash and Spiced Onions
This filling pigeon pea salad is rich with sweet morsels of roasted butternut squash, gently cooked spiced onions, and a simple dressing made from lemon juice, olive oil, and a bit of Dijon mustard and honey.
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Cauliflower Pakoras
Seasoned with Kashmiri chile powder, garam masala, and turmeric, these crisp, tender cauliflower pakoras make a satisfying snack.
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Grilled Paneer and Chickpea Salad
Served with a salad of mixed greens, hearty chickpeas, crunchy cucumbers, and fresh herbs, this is a dish perfect for a quick and easy light meal.
Chicken Breasts With Miso-Garlic Sauce
Boneless, skinless chicken breasts are known for becoming dry, but brining them before cooking helps retain moisture. The chicken is soaked in cold, salted water to which a small amount of whey or yogurt is added. (The lactic acid and phosphates in the dairy help with moisture retention.) However, the star of this recipe isn’t the chicken: It’s the sauce, made from miso, plenty of garlic and a good amount of lemon and leftover pan juices. Just take care when salting it: Miso is salty by nature, and lemon juice tends to heighten its brininess. Round out the meal by pairing it with white rice, or a vibrant salad.
Sheet-Pan Chicken With Squash, Fennel and Sesame
This recipe, created with the convenience of sheet pans in mind, has an effortless charm. Crisp-skinned chicken thighs and caramelized butternut squash get smokiness from chipotle and nuttiness from sesame seeds. The sweet flavors of the fennel and squash play off each other, while a generous sprinkling of lime juice adds a hit of acid for contrast. Feel free to swap butternut squash with your favorite fall squash. You can peel it before you cook, but you can also leave the skin on. Once roasted until tender, it’ll release the squash easily when you eat it.
Brussels Sprouts With Pickled Shallots and Labneh
Pickled onions and labneh lend brightness to this brussels sprouts dish that’s full of flavors and textures, making it a show-stopping addition to the Thanksgiving table. (But why limit yourself there?) This recipe calls for date syrup, available at Middle Eastern grocery stores or online, or pekmez, a type of molasses made from grapes (and sometimes other fruit) used in Turkish cooking. If you can’t find either, use the same amount of maple syrup or honey. Some of the fruity and woody flavors will be missing, but these substitutes will provide much-needed sweetness to the rest of the dish.
Shrimp, Cilantro and Tamarind Soup
Goan cuisine is known for its bold use of sourness, heat and spices. Seafood occupies an important position in Goan food, and, in this shrimp soup, tamarind is used to provide sourness while chiles provide heat. Here, the raw shrimp are cooked slowly over low heat, helping the stock to develop its rich savoriness. But the method also works spectacularly with frozen shrimp, and you can use shrimp with their tails left on, if you prefer. Whatever you do, be sure to avoid using those thick, syrupy tamarind concentrates. They lack tamarind's fruity flavor and carry a noticeable artificial aftertaste. Serve with toasted slices of lightly buttered bread to finish off any remaining liquid in the soup bowl.
Sweet Potato-Garlic Soup With Chile Oil
This silky-smooth sweet potato soup features the deep flavor of roasted garlic and a splendid dose of garlicky, Sichuan peppercorn chile oil, which delivers heat and a tingling sensation with every spoonful. Roasting the sweet potatoes at a high temperature does a few things in this recipe: First, it develops the sweet potato’s flavors, and second, it softens the tubers, yielding a smooth texture. Serve this soup with thick slices of buttered, toasted bread to sop it up.
Eggplant and Potato Gratin
In this side dish inspired by Indian flavors, slices of eggplant and potato sit over a bed of crushed tomatoes seasoned with garlic, cumin and nigella seeds. It’s a wonderful accompaniment to seafood, particularly roasted fish. To cut the cooking time, slice the vegetables even thinner, using a mandolin or food processor. Nigella seeds are sometimes erroneously labeled as black cumin, but they look and taste quite different. They have a triangular shape and a distinct black coat, and the flavor will remind some of alliums. There is no direct substitute, but, for the same texture — if not the same taste — you could use sesame seeds.
Sesame Tofu With Coconut-Lime Dressing and Spinach
Coated in panko and sesame seeds, tofu takes on a splendid crunchiness that contrasts with sautéed spinach in this 30-minute dish. It comes together under a fragrant coconut-lime dressing — which you can double, then toss with salad. Swap out the spinach to your taste: Try this with mustard greens or chopped collard greens, adjusting the cooking time accordingly. Be careful when handling the uncooked tofu once it is breaded, as the breading is delicate. Using a pair of kitchen tongs or two forks to grab the tofu from the sides will help prevent its crumbling or falling apart. Serve this satisfying main by itself, or alongside a bowl of rice.
Roasted Butternut Squash With Lentils and Feta
The secret to making winter squash taste even better is to bump up its sweetness by roasting it, then pair it with sweet and sour ingredients, like this pomegranate molasses and honey dressing. Thinly slicing the squash speeds up roasting time, and, if you have access to precooked lentils, feel free to add them here. You can also substitute other soft, creamy cheeses for the feta, such as goat or sheep’s milk cheeses. Olive oil can leave a bitter aftertaste in emulsions, so, if you prefer to avoid it, use a neutral oil like grapeseed. Serve as a fall side, or alongside warm slices of generously buttered sourdough toast as a light meal.
Rice Noodles With Garlicky Cashew Sauce
This dish is loosely based on an Indo-Chinese garlic noodle dish. Here, a combination of Italian and Chinese condiments like cashews, Parmesan, soy sauce and anchovies create a creamy, umami-rich garlic sauce. This recipe uses rice noodles, but you could use egg noodles, ramen or any type of noodle. Since Parmesan, anchovies and soy sauce tend to fall on the saltier side, taste as you go and season the sauce accordingly. Feel free to reduce the amount of garlic, as it leans toward the generous side. These noodles are best eaten warm as soon as they’re mixed with the sauce.
Wild Rice Dressing With Mushrooms and Chile Crisp
This earthy side dish stands out brilliantly with its mix of mushrooms, wild rice and chile crisp. The contrast between the rice and mushrooms provides textural interest: soft and firm, tender and chewy. Halve any larger mushrooms lengthwise to help them cook evenly. And be generous with the chile crisp, making sure to stir the mixture well. All of those crunchy bits carry flavor — and a mighty punch of savory heat.
Chicken Koftas With Lime Couscous
This splendid yet easy meal pairs koftas (gently spiced meatballs) and couscous with fresh accents from herbs, limes and crunchy pine nuts. Using a food processor to blitz all the kofta ingredients provides enough friction to help the meat proteins bind and form a much nicer and compact kofta. A similar technique is traditionally employed in India, where ground meat is chopped until it becomes a paste. While the sweet and tart taste of dried cherries are nice here, cranberries are an excellent substitute, bringing a similar spot of brightness to this dish.
Roasted New Potatoes With Garlic and Tamarind
In this recipe, roasted potatoes are paired with classic flavors used in Western and Indian cooking: butter and garlic, the fruity acidity of tamarind and lime juice, and the sweetness of date syrup. The potatoes are sliced and cooked in a pot of salted water, which helps them develop a thin crust and creamy interior when roasted. They make a great side to almost any meal, and can easily take the place of a breakfast hash. The shallots here carry a milder bite, but a red onion can be substituted for a stronger taste. Do stick to tamarind paste, and avoid using thick, syrupy tamarind concentrates. They lack tamarind’s fruitiness and carry a noticeable artificial aftertaste.
No-Bake Mango Lime Cheesecake
This creamy mango cheesecake has the unmistakable scent and taste of fresh limes and cardamom — and, best of all, it doesn’t require you to turn on the oven. Avoid using fresh mango pulp here: An enzyme in raw mango can prevent the gelatin from setting. (Canned mangoes don’t have that enzyme; it’s destroyed when they’re heated to high temperatures to be preserved.) If you must use fresh mangoes, purée the pulp, then bring it to a boil over medium heat, stirring constantly, and cool before using.
Almond, Black Pepper and Fig Cake With Tamarind Glaze
This cake celebrates the sweet, jamlike texture of juicy ripe figs against the backdrop of a fragrant almond cake, with a sweet-and-sour tamarind glaze as contrast. As the cake bakes, the fresh figs release their juices, which begin to caramelize and take on the flavor of black pepper. Tellicherry black peppercorns and long pepper, if available, are wonderful options to explore for their unique aromas. Frozen fresh figs will also work in this cake. Just remember to thaw them to room temperature and drain off any excess liquid before using. And, make sure to use tamarind paste, not concentrate. Thick, syrupy concentrates lack the fruity flavor of tamarind and carry a noticeable artificial aftertaste.
Black Pepper Shrimp
This dish, adapted from Lucy Carvalho, the cookbook author Nik Sharma’s grandmother, owes its fragrance and fiery bite to a generous amount of crushed black peppercorns in a velvety gravy. Like many other Indian home cooks, Ms. Carvalho, who lived in the coastal city of Mumbai, took the Indo-Chinese dish black pepper chicken and substituted shrimp instead. Some versions of this dish call for curry leaves to be fried with the spices, or they might call for another protein in place of the shrimp, like tilapia, cod or catfish. Here, the peppercorns are infused in hot oil, then left to steep as the dish cooks. Fish sauce bolsters the savoriness, but can be left out. For an even stronger bump of heat, increase the amount of black pepper and toss in a sliced serrano. Serve it all over rice for a fast, satisfying dinner.
Chicken Cafreal
Galinha cafreal or chicken cafreal is a classic dish that’s often included in Goan Christmas and other noteworthy celebrations, accompanied by bread or rice. This dish is widely believed to have its origins in Mozambique and was brought by the Portuguese to their former colony of Goa in India. The signature hallmark of this dish is the fragrant concoction of spices and fresh herbs that’s used as the marinade and then cooked to form a very thick “dry” sauce, in which most of the water is driven out through evaporation to form a thick, flavorful coat on the chicken. Typically, the potatoes are fried, but boiling them in water and then roasting them in the oven produces a creamier interior and crispy exterior.
Ground Lamb Pulao
The aroma of fresh mint and spices permeates this bright, turmeric-painted pulao made with basmati rice and ground lamb. This recipe, which has origins in the ground meat pulaos of India, is quite flexible and open to additions: a handful of fresh dill, a generous sprinkling of fried peanuts or other nuts, or crispy, fried onions tossed in just before serving. It also works well if you substitute beef for the lamb, and really needs no sides, except maybe some raita, creamy plain yogurt or a salad.
Tamarind Paste
Preparing tamarind paste is quite simple, and homemade paste has the added advantage of keeping for several months in the refrigerator, the result of its high acid content. Tamarind fruit comes in two forms: as blocks of fruit pulp or as whole fruit pods. If working with tamarind fruit pods, make sure they’re unripe, which ensures a stronger degree of sourness and less sweetness. And don’t forget to remove and discard the outer shell to use the pulp. Blocks of tamarind can be obtained from Indian and Asian grocery stores or online.
Pan-Fried Salmon With Green-Coconut Chutney
Coastal flavors from India permeate this crispy-skin salmon. The coconut chutney carries the buzz of ginger and green chile, while a drizzle of tadka — a hot, bright red oil infused with mustard seeds, curry leaves and Aleppo flakes — is the crowning glory of the dish. For perfectly crisp skin, resist the urge to fidget with the fish until the appropriate amount of time has passed; the skin will start to crisp at the edges and the fillet will release with ease. Use fresh or frozen coconut to make the chutney. (Desiccated coconut simply doesn’t work as well here.) You can use freeze-dried curry leaves instead of fresh, but you might need to double or even triple the amount, as their intensity is noticeably weaker in comparison.