Rouget à la Niçoise

Rouget à la Niçoise (grilled red mullet with tomato, anchovy, garlic, and black olives) teaches a useful division of labor: cook the fish with restraint, then let the garnish declare where you are. Red mullet is small, rich, and delicate. The one true thing is that it must meet fierce heat with thoroughly dry skin, or it clings to the grill before it has time to bronze.

The original entry assumed a grill station already fluent in small fish and a saucier holding the garnish from Sole à la Niçoise. At home, make the tomato garnish first in one wide pan, hold it barely warm, then give your full attention to the rouget. The quantities become four whole fish, and the brigade's separate stations and holding time disappear. That is scaffolding. Direct heat, reduced tomato, garlic, anchovy, and black olives stay, because they are the dish. One cook, one stove, one evening.

Done properly, the rouget arrives ruby and gold, its flesh pearly beside the bone, with a glossy stripe of tomato and dark olives across the top. Dry the fish inside and out, oil the fish rather than drowning the grill, and don't force the first turn. That release from the grate is the step that decides everything.