Home › The Principles of Cookery › Bloaters
Bloaters
Open the bloaters down the back, and bone them. Lay the fish one on the other (insides together), and broil over a clear fire. When sent to table they are separated, laid on a hot dish, and rubbed over with a little butter; or, split up, take out the backbone, trim off the head, tail, and fins, double the fish over, and broil from five to six minutes over a clear fire.
A bloater is a whole herring, salted only lightly and cold-smoked with the guts left in, which makes it plumper, softer and gamier than a kipper. The whole method here is really one idea: cook the fish clamped flesh-to-flesh so it does not dry out over the coals.
- SourcingTrue bloaters are now rare outside British smokehouses and East Anglian fishmongers. Kippers (split, brined, cold-smoked herring) are the nearest general substitute, though they are saltier and already opened out; buff or bloater-style whole smoked herring may be sold under regional names.
- "A clear fire"This means a bed of coals burnt down past flames to a steady glow, so no soot or flare-up touches the fish. A gas or electric broiler at high heat, or a grill over settled charcoal, does the same job.
- Insides togetherSandwiching the two boned fish looks practical rather than decorative. Herring is oily but thin, and the paired cut surfaces shield each other from direct heat, which should stop the flesh curling and drying. Worth keeping to if you are grilling over open heat.
- TimingFive to six minutes is the recipe's own figure for the second, doubled-over method. It gives no time at all for the paired-fish version; three to four minutes a side is a reasonable guess for the thicker sandwich. The fish is already cured and smoked, so you are heating it through and crisping the skin, not cooking it from raw.
- BoningOpen the fish along the back with a small sharp knife, spread it flat, and lift the backbone away with the ribs attached. The fine pin bones that remain soften with cooking; picking them out is not worth the damage to the flesh.
- Butter and no saltA knob of butter rubbed over the hot fish is the only seasoning wanted. Bloaters carry their own salt, and kippers considerably more, so taste before adding any.
- YieldOne bloater per person as a breakfast or supper dish; the first method pairs two fish, so two servings, though the recipe states no yield. Serve with brown bread and butter, and a wedge of lemon or a poached egg.
- The smellCold-smoked herring perfumes a kitchen for hours. An extractor fan on high, or cooking outdoors, helps; the smell is also why some cooks now cook them covered in a dish or in a jug of hot water instead.
Bloaters belong to the great age of the English herring fishery, and Great Yarmouth in Norfolk is the town most closely associated with them; the fish were salted for only a few hours and smoked briefly, ungutted, which gives the characteristic slightly bitter, high-flavoured taste from the enzymes still working in the gut. The name is often linked to the fish's swollen appearance after curing, but the derivation is not settled. Because they were cured so lightly, bloaters would not keep long, which is why they read in Victorian books as a local breakfast luxury while the harder-cured red herring travelled the country and abroad.