Tandoori salmon

Serves two as a main meal

Salmon fillet- 500 gms
Thick yoghurt- 3 tbsp
Chickpea/ besan flour- 1 tbsp
Ginger garlic paste- 1 heaped tsp
Lemon juice- 1 tbsp
Chilli powder- 1 1/2 tsp
Cumin powder- 1 1/4 tsp
Coriander powder- 1 1/4 tsp
Garam masala- 1/2 tsp
kasuri methi- 2 tsp, roughly crushed
Ajjwain/ Carom seeds- 1/2 tsp
Mustard seeds- 1/4 tsp
Whole pepper- 1/2 tsp

Salt- to taste

Oil- 1 tbsp + enough to grease the tray

Crush together the ajjwain, mustard seeds and whole pepper in a pestle and mortar. It can be slightly coarse.

Into a bowl add all the other ingredients along with the crushed spices and mix well.

Add salt only after you do a taste test.

Line and grease a baking tray with silver foil and place the salmon fillet, skin side down.

Generously apply the marinade on to the fillet, covering the sides as well.

Pack it on a bit, but dont over do it, so that the marinade is spilling on to the tray.

Cover and marinate for about half hour. This step is purely optional as i think seafood doesnt really require a lot of marinating time. However, i did keep it refrigerated for about 45 minutes as i got side tracked with random chores.

When ready to cook, preheat the oven to 180c.

Place the tray on to the middle shelf in the oven and bake for 10 minutes.

Then take the tray out, if your marinade has dried up, brush some oil all over the fillet.

Its highly likely that the oils from the fish would have collected on the tray, just use that same oil to moisten the fish.

Put the tray back into the oven and bake for a further 6 to 7 minutes.

Remove tray, then turn the broiler mode on your oven to maximum temperature.

Place the tray on the highest shelf, as close to the grill as possible and char the fish for about 3 to 4 minutes, to get that tandoori taste/effect.

Really you need to be careful here or you'd end up burning the fish altogether.

Serve with a side salad.

Notes: The cooking time mostly depends on the thickness of the fillet. Mine was a large 500 gms piece and so it look the time mentioned above.

If you are using individual fillets, it definitely wont take that long, maybe max 8 minuites and then grill for 2 minutes or so.

You can check if its done bu cutting a small slice and if it separates into flakes, you are good to go.

Over cooking salmon makes it dry and chewy i feel.

I had 2 tbsp of leftover marinade which i stored in the fridge and used for paneer tikka the next day.