Tandoori food delivers some of the boldest, smokiest flavors in Indian cooking, and that’s exactly why I love it.
As a teenager growing up in Bombay, I would sneak out at night with my friends to eat hot, juicy tandoori chicken wrapped in buttery naan in one of the countless small eateries specializing in North Indian cuisine around the city. The meat’s signature charred crust, its vibrant crimson hue, the heady aroma of spices that reaches you before the plate even hits the table—it’s dramatic and unforgettable.
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But tandoori cooking isn’t just for meat.
Its combination of fierce heat and robust seasoning is also a great match for seafood, especially a richly marbled fish like salmon.
A lot of cooks (myself included) mimic a tandoor with a broiler. The element’s heat isn’t as fearsome as that of the urn-shaped clay vessel, which is fueled by charcoal or wood and can reach up to 900 degrees. But its radiant heat is powerful, and together with the oven’s hot air currents, makes the broiler a very capable stand-in.
Tandoor-roasted meat is often marinated in a mixture of yogurt and spices before cooking, which both tenderizes the meat and forms a crisp crust as it chars.
But since salmon is naturally tender and also cooks quickly, I skipped the yogurt and instead briefly soaked the fish in a baking soda solution.
Raising the salmon’s pH would prevent the fish’s muscle fibers from clenching together and squeezing out moisture as it cooked, buying more time for the surface to form a beautiful dark crust.
Turning Beet Red
We use a combination of beet and lemon juices to mimic the red hue of tandoor-cooked meats, which are typically dyed with food coloring. First we grate a beet to capture its juice and mix it with the spice paste. Then, before applying the spice paste, we brush the fillets with lemon juice. Its acid readjusts the pH on the salmon’s surface, which stabilizes the betanin, a key pigment in beets, so that the color doesn’t fade when the fish is cooked.
The other hallmark of tandoor-cooked meats is an orangey-red color intended to signal spiciness and boost visual appeal.
Restaurants achieve this with food coloring. I used a beet instead, grating it to capture a couple tablespoons of its deep purple-red juice, which I mixed with spices. The trick to making it really stand out on the fish was lemon juice which I brushed over the fillets just before applying the spice paste.
About those spices: Garam masala was a must (the term translates to “hot spice blend” and almost always includes coriander, cumin, black pepper, cardamom, and cinnamon). I augmented this with more cardamom, Kashmiri chile powder to double down on fruity spiciness, kasoori methi for maple-y warmth, and plenty of garlic and ginger.
Hot from the broiler, redolent with smoky spices, and wrapped inside a warm roti (a perfect cradle for delicate fish) my tandoori salmon transports me right back to Bombay.
