Chef Thomas
A Proper Ploughman's Board
A board of good cheddar, thick ham, proper pickle, hard-boiled eggs, and crusty bread. Not cooking so much as assembling with conviction, and one of the finest lunches the English kitchen has ever produced.
Culinary Explorer
A cooking platform built around craft, culture, and the stories behind what we eat.
Bloater Paste
Created by Chef Thomas
Smoked herring pounded with butter, lemon, and a thread of cayenne into something pungent and deeply savoury, potted under clarified butter the way they've done it in Yarmouth for two hundred years.
Appetizers & Snacks
British
Make Ahead
25 min
Active Time
5 min cook•30 min total
Yield1 small pot, enough for 4-6 servings on toast
The smell hits you first. Not the polite, clean smoke of a kipper, but something lower and wilder, the kind of smell that fills a room and divides opinion. A bloater is a herring smoked whole, guts and all, and that's what gives it the gamey, almost fermented depth that no other smoked fish can touch. If kippers are the well-mannered cousin, bloaters are the one who tells stories that make the table go quiet.
Bloater paste was once as ordinary as Marmite. Every fishmonger's window in the east of England had a pot of it. Yarmouth built a whole industry around these fish, and for a century or more, a small pot of bloater paste on the tea table was simply what you had with toast. It's nearly gone now. The smokehouses have closed, the bloaters are hard to find, and the taste has slipped out of living memory for most people. That feels like a loss worth resisting.
The making of it is nothing complicated. You skin and bone the bloaters, pound the flesh with good butter, sharpen it with lemon and cayenne, and press it into a pot. Fifteen minutes of work. The result is something rich, salty, smoky, and utterly unlike anything you can buy. Spread it thinly on hot toast. A little goes a long way. There are few better feelings than putting something this honest in front of someone who has never tasted it and watching them try to place the flavour.
I wrote it down in the notebook last winter: bloaters, butter, cayenne, Tuesday. Cold rain outside. This is that kind of food. Right food, right evening.
The technique, the tradition, and the story behind every dish.
Discover Culinary ExplorerIngredients
bloaters
Quantity
2 whole
whole smoked herring
unsalted butter
Quantity
80g, plus 40g for sealing
softened
lemon juice
Quantity
half a lemon
juiced
cayenne pepper
Quantity
good pinch
ground mace
Quantity
pinch
black pepper
Quantity
to taste
freshly ground
hot toast or good bread (optional)
Quantity
to serve
| Ingredient | Quantity |
|---|---|
| bloaterswhole smoked herring | 2 whole |
| unsalted buttersoftened | 80g, plus 40g for sealing |
| lemon juicejuiced | half a lemon |
| cayenne pepper | good pinch |
| ground mace | pinch |
| black pepperfreshly ground | to taste |
| hot toast or good bread (optional) | to serve |
Equipment Needed
- •Pestle and mortar or sturdy mixing bowl and fork
- •Small pot, ramekin, or two small jars for potting
- •Small saucepan for clarifying butter
Instructions
- 1
Prepare the bloaters
Lay the bloaters on a board. They'll smell extraordinary, somewhere between bonfire smoke and the sea, richer and more animal than a kipper. Slit each one along the belly and open them out flat. Pull away the backbone and as many of the smaller bones as you can manage, working with your fingers and a knife tip. Peel off the skin. It should come away in sheets. You'll be left with soft, amber-gold flakes of fish. Don't worry about the odd small bone. They'll break down in the pounding.
If you can only find kippers, you can make a version of this, but it won't be bloater paste. A kipper is gutted before smoking. A bloater isn't, and that's where the gamey depth comes from. Seek out a proper fishmonger or order from Yarmouth if you can. - 2
Pound the fish and butter
Put the bloater flesh into a mortar, or a bowl if you're using the back of a fork. Add the softened butter and start working them together. A pestle and mortar gives the best texture, rough and spreadable with a bit of character left in it. A fork will do the job, just takes longer. You want the fish and butter to become a cohesive paste, but not smooth like something from a factory. Keep some texture. That's where the pleasure is.
A food processor makes quick work of it, but the paste comes out too uniform for my liking. The slightly uneven texture from a mortar or a fork is part of what makes this feel handmade and honest. - 3
Season and taste
Add the lemon juice, cayenne, mace, and a few grinds of black pepper. Mix through. Now taste it on a scrap of bread or toast. The lemon should cut through the richness without dominating. The cayenne should be there as warmth at the back of the throat, not heat. The mace is quiet, old-fashioned, and exactly right. Adjust until it tastes like something you'd want to eat standing at the kitchen counter with a glass of cold white wine. Season and taste. Then taste again.
- 4
Pot and seal
Press the paste firmly into a small pot, a ramekin, or a couple of small jars, smoothing the top with the back of a spoon. Melt the remaining butter gently in a small pan until it foams, then let it settle. Pour the clear golden butter over the top of the paste, leaving the milky solids behind. This seal of clarified butter keeps the air out and the paste good for days. Refrigerate until the butter sets.
Chef Tips
- •Finding bloaters is the real challenge. A good fishmonger may be able to order them, or look to the remaining Yarmouth smokehouses that sell by post. They're worth the effort of tracking down. Once you have them, the rest is simple.
- •The paste improves overnight in the fridge. The flavours settle and deepen. Make it a day ahead if you can, and bring it to cool room temperature before serving so the butter softens enough to spread.
- •Spread it thinly. Bloater paste is concentrated and forceful. A thick layer overwhelms. A thin scrape on hot toast, with perhaps a few drops of lemon squeezed over, is the proper way. A cup of strong tea or a glass of dry sherry alongside.
- •This keeps well under its butter seal for up to five days in the fridge. Once the seal is broken, eat it within two days. Not that it usually lasts that long.
Advance Preparation
- •Best made a day ahead. The flavour deepens and the texture firms under its butter seal. Keep refrigerated.
- •Sealed under clarified butter and refrigerated, bloater paste keeps for up to five days. Without the butter seal, eat within two days.
- •Bring to cool room temperature for twenty minutes before serving so the paste is soft enough to spread easily.
Frequently Asked Questions
Nutrition Information
1 serving (about 73g)
Calories
275 calories
Total Fat
26 g
Saturated Fat
14 g
Trans Fat
1 g
Unsaturated Fat
12 g
Cholesterol
85 mg
Sodium
435 mg
Total Carbohydrates
0 g
Dietary Fiber
0 g
Sugars
0 g
Protein
12 g
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