Bloaters

Harengs bouffis (bloaters, herrings half-dried in smoke) teach restraint at the grill. The cure has already supplied salt and smoke, so your work is simply to warm the fish through while the skin bronzes and the flesh stays succulent. Moderate heat is not a casual suggestion. Too fierce a fire burns the skin before the thickest flesh is ready.

The classical entry assumed a coal fire and a gridiron whose distance a cook could adjust by instinct. Your oven broiler is the honest home equivalent: set the tray well below the element and let distance soften the heat. I have changed only the fire and the scale, giving you one fish per person. There is no saucier's work or standing stock here, and no brigade scaffolding worth preserving. The grilling is the dish and must stay. One cook, one stove, one evening.

Because the cure is light, these fish remain perishable. Keep them cold, cook them promptly, and don't soak or salt them again. Before the tray meets the broiler, remember the step that decides everything: control the distance from the heat.