What do you think of skate?

[Saffy]

I cooked skate for the first time last week and I was horribly disappointed. The flavour was so strong and the texture of the fish I could only describe as stringy.. definately not my cup of tea at all. Maybe my recipe or preparation was at fault, or maybe that is just the way it is.

I am not prepared to give up on it entirely though, so if anyone can convince me to try it again I am all ears.

[Sandra Levine]

I didn't know skate was an either love-it or hate-it proposition or, alternatively, an acquired taste, because I love it so much, but aparently it is. To me it occupies a place somewhere between shellfish and fin fish, although I compare it to neither and simply enjoy its unique qualities as they present themselves. You say the taste was "strong." Skate, when extremely fresh, has a ammoniac character that disappears when the fish is a day or two old. Maybe your skate was, paradoxically, too fresh.

How did you prepare your skate?

[Saffy]

I dipped it in seasoned flour and pan fried it in a mix of a little olive oil and butter.

I made a light topping of capers, lemon, garlic and crispy proscuitto.

I cooked it over a high heat until it was golden on the outside and cooked through in the thickest part.

It could well have been too fresh, I bought it and cooked it the same day.

[Sandra Levine]

Did it smell a little ammoniated before you cooked it?

[Saffy]

hmm ... I could not honestly say .. since I had cooked the garlic etc first and the aroma of that was very pervasive

[Basildog]

Sorry to disagree , but the amoinia smell gets stronger over time.Its the urine in the flesh decomposing.Very very fresh skate will cook up with a strange texture, but the smell comes later.Skate is also the only fish with a menstrual cycle(so i,m told)

[tommy]

i find skate to be extremely mild. a slight nuttiness to it. cooked with brown butter i see no reason why it could be a bad thing!

[Rosie]

I love skate and prefer the way it is cooked in the US rather than the way it was served in Paris. In Paris they left the bones on. Here it is served as a fillet. I find it to be mild tasting.

[tommy]

I love skate and prefer the way it is cooked in the US rather than the way it was served in  Paris. In Paris they left the bones on. Here it is served as a fillet. I find it to be mild tasting.

tabla in nyc served it on the bone once. i almost cried. what a pain in the butt. i'm sure the chef got some feedback because they never did it again.

[Charlene Leonard]

isn't it known as "lady of the sea"? that's always put me off

[Gavin Jones]

Skate on the bone/cartilage is really easy to eat and helps it maintain structure.

I've always found it really bland - sort of fish for people who don't like fish.

Actually I lied on that front i had a lump with a piece of belly pork (at Pied a terre in February) which was great. The unctuous pig cosied up nicely to the skate in an excellent culinary miscegenation. The skate took well to the essentially meaty treatment.

As they're scavengers does anyone know if they're particularly prone to contamination (e.g. heavy metal, plastics by-products)?

[Sandra Levine]

Basildog, I yield to your expertise, but maybe there is some sort of (other) cycle in which the ammonia waxes and wanes. I found an interesting site that tells some more about skate and other fish:lots of fish tales

[StephenT]

Skate on the bone/cartilage is really easy to eat and helps it maintain structure.

I've had skate once, at a fish and chip shop called the "Rock and Sole Plaice" in London. It was of course battered and deep fried and I did find it rather hard to eat - hunting for the layer of fish between the batter (most of which I didn't eat) and the bones / cartilage.

I ordered it because it was described on the menu as having a lot of flavour, but mine wasn't particularly flavourful. I'd be keen to try it again, given a more sympathetic preparation.

[it aint easy being cheesy]

When Skate is either frozen or old the texture becomes stringy and firm due to the ammonia in the urine which is in the fish. Being that the smell wasn't noticable when you cooked it the fish was probably frozen. Skate fresh is mild, nutty, delicate, and wonderfull. Not fresh it just sucks.

[mamster]

My father and I once shared a whole fried skate (billed as stingray) with tamarind sauce at a Malaysian restaurant in Seattle. It was a fairly small skate, but what meat we pulled off was good enough to sell me on the idea of skate-on-the-bone, at least occasionally.

Also, as I've said before, because of the shape of the fish and the dark tamarind sauce, it was like being served the bat symbol.

[tommy]

my assumption has been that "skate" and "ray" are somehow different, although i've always questioned that.

also, since we using eat the "wing" of the thing, what happens to the rest? is it edible? how much of the animal is actually the wing? so confused.

[Suzanne F]

Skate and Ray are the same, members of the same family as shark (and not to be confused with Tom and Ray*). They MUST be very fresh when consumed, otherwise they become strongly ammoniac. Yes, the texture can be on the stringy side, but generally the flesh is soft and delicate, with a mild, sweet flavor. For years it was considered a "trash fish" in the US, so it was cheap. Low cost (and novelty) pushed it onto trendy menues, so now we can watch to see if it becomes the next Patagonian toothfish. Maybe not, because it is not cheap to prep, and must be fresh. Anyway...

The classic French preparations are "au beurre noir" or "au beurre noisette." According to Larousse, for these the fish is poached.

Le Bernardin in NYC has had raie au beurre noir on its menu from time to time. Also in NYC, currently Artisanal does a saute (the fillet is dipped first in milk and then in Wondra flour) with a blood orange/caper/caulifower/crouton sauce and garnish that is one of the best things I've ever tasted. The sweet fish is crisped on the outside, tender within, and the garnish is sweet-tart-salty-crunchy.

* For those not familiar with National Public Radio, Tom and Ray, aka Click and Clack, the Tappet Brothers, are MIT-educated car mechanics with a weekly call-in radio show.

[Wilfrid]

I certainly did like skate until I read Basildog's post about the urine and menstruation. As a meat-eater, this is one of my preferences when I have to choose fish. With black butter, of course, of course.

Recently ate skate fish-cakes at Alias in New York, topped with a slice from the wing. Very good.

[Suvir Saran]

I loved the skate preparations I ate in Singapore. Very spicy though.

They cooked the spice-rubbed skate in banana leaves on a grill.

Tender, moist and brilliant in taste.

[Sandra Levine]

It is urea, not urine that is part of the flesh. Urea is only one component of urine, and has many cosmetic uses -- it is almost always listed as an ingredient in moisturizer, for example. BTW, I not make up the the

(mis)information about the freshness of skate. When I was learning to prepare it, I consulted a number of sources and one of them stated something about the ammonia smell disappearing after a while after the fish is caught. I will try to find that book again (so I can avoid it in the future!)

Fresh or not-so-fresh, the nose knows.

[Saffy]

Ok it sounds like I might have to try it again with all these skate advocates here. I love fish of almost any kind and I was so suprised to find one that I did not like!

I don't think it was frozen, since here by law the seller must state if fish has been frozen when you buy it so you don't take it home and re-freeze it.

Here you can only buy it on the bone.. wonder if I could convince my fishmonger to fillet it for me :)

[Beachfan]

I love skate and prefer the way it is cooked in the US rather than the way it was served in  Paris. In Paris they left the bones on. Here it is served as a fillet. I find it to be mild tasting.

tabla in nyc served it on the bone once. i almost cried. what a pain in the butt. i'm sure the chef got some feedback because they never did it again.

I love skate. The only time I didn't like it was in Tabla. I went a week before September 11, so I never got to write my letter of complaint.

After reflecting on the meal, I think they served "Ray" instead of skate. Maybe it was just bone- on, but there were no areas of the fish that didn't need to be scraped off to get the meat. Literally scraped.

I didn't complain to the waiter, and now I'm suffering the consequence. Instead of giving them an opportunity to make it right, I've been reluctant to go back. And it was one of my favorites before.

Anyone else who can opine on whether it was a ray or was it just bone on?

[tommy]

After reflecting on the meal, I think they served "Ray" instead of skate.  Maybe it was just bone- on, but there were no areas of the fish that didn't need to be scraped off to get the meat.  Literally scraped. 

I didn't complain to the waiter, and now I'm suffering the consequence.  Instead of giving them an opportunity to make it right, I've been reluctant to go back.  And it was one of my favorites before.

i don't know ray from skate, but i'll agree it was very miserable to eat. all i wanted was to be able to break a piece of that beautiful flesh off with my fork and instead i got a battle that left me confused and angry. i did take the time to say something to chef cardoz however. he seemed surprised that i had a problem with it, but as i say, i haven't had it bone-on there since.

i would hope you'd return now.

[Beachfan]

i don't know ray from skate, but i'll agree it was very miserable to eat

A ray is about 3 times the size of a skate at least. What convinced me that it was a ray was how bloody thick it was. Skates aren't.

[rozrapp]

Thank you! Thank you! All you knowlegeable skate-ers. Now I finally know that I wasn't crazy many years ago when I ordered skate for the very first time at the Keltic Lodge in Canada, took one bite and immediately spit it out because of a strong ammonia flavor. Our waiter had no answer when I asked if that was how the fish should taste, though instinctively I knew that it couldn't be right. Anyway, I sent it back, ordered something else, and -- with that miserable experience ever fresh in my memory -- never ordered skate again.