Cajun Spiced Salmon Fillet – Reprised

These Cajun spiced salmon fillets were easy to do and, if I do say so myself, turned out just perfectly.

I often find salmon quite strong so we just bought one salmon fillet and then I halved it with a sharp knife.  I sprinkled the bottom of a oven dish with salt, pepper, cayenne pepper and a Cajun spice mix together with some olive oil. 

After pinboning the salmon – that is, taking out the long bones you can feel by running your fingers over the fillet – I use a pair of tweezers I keep in the kitchen and only use for this.  Then I put it skin side down on the spices in the dish, I then sprinkled more of the same on top.  I let it sit for about 20 minutes while preparing other elements of the meal.  It is good for letting the flavours meld and also it helps not to have the salmon too fridge cold when you start to cook it.

I heated up a pan and popped the fillets in – skin side down.  I left them to sizzle on a high heat for about 3 minutes – enough to make the skin crispy.  Then you take the fillets out of the pan, pop them back in the oven dish and into a moderate oven for 12-15 minutes.  Please note that I did not sear the flesh side.

The result was perfectly cooked soft salmon flesh with tasty crispy flavoursome skin – hard to say which was enjoyed the most.  This one definitely got the seal of approval from the better half.