Skate Wings with Black Butter Sauce

July 22, 2003

You may have seen skate at the fish-mongers but been dubious about trying it out. Don't be afraid! Skate wings make a delicious - and cheap meal. In these parts, they are about $4-$5 a kilo.

Skate flesh is fine and white and very tasty. You know you are eating fish, but skate really does have a distinctive flavour of its own.

A skate is a kind of ray - one of those big flat fish with a long thin tail. The wing is the part used for cooking.

Skate wings have a cartilaginous kind of bone in them, but it is very easily cut with a knife. The cooked fish is readily removed from one side of this "bone" which is then turned over for the remaining flesh on the other side - a bit like eating sole, flounder and other flat fish.

Skate can be poached or grilled and the classic way of serving it is with black butter sauce.

Quantities don't matter for this dish, as long as you have enough skate to go around.

Skate with Black Butter Sauce

1 litre water
2 teaspoons salt
quarter cup white vinegar or the juice of one or two lemons
1 carrot, diced
1 onion, chopped
sprig of parsley

Being the above mixture to boil in a largish pan, cut the skate into serving portions, place in the pan and simmer for 20 minutes. Keep the fish hot - on a serving dish in the oven - while you make the sauce. For this you will need:

50g butter
1 or 2 tablespoons of chopped gherkins or pickled capers
1 teaspoon white wine vinegar

Heat the butter and let it froth till it turns a deep golden brown - make sure it doesn't get too black looking and start to burn. The sauce is not, as the name might suggest, actually black!

Add the gherkins or capers and the vinegar and pour over the skate. A sprinkling of chopped parsley finishes off the dish.

Serve with mashed potatoes laced with chopped spring onions, and a salad.