Garbage fish Breakdown Skate

two wings

Ok pay attention, because I am only going to do this once.  It has been twenty years since I had to break down Skate wing in culinary school.  I know I am not the only one who thinks that keeping a skate when you are catching nothing else is worth it.  Well you can check out the breakdown and decide for yourself.  There is a website dedicated to this at www.garbagefish.com that will have videos of breakdowns of Dogfish head (sand shark) blow fish, and skate, but here is h0w we do this in a restaurant.

First wash off the slimey bastard well, these have spines on them at the head, tail, and along the outer sides to protect them.  There is a mild toxin in the spines that can make your hand swell up a little if you are “stung” by them.  I have worked up a tolerance to this from catching so many of them.  The guys that plug on the beach have it all over us that throw bait that they do not catch these things.

my skate

Now that you have cleaned off the skate, feel around the wing area to find the bones that hold the wing on.  You want to follow that bone and cut against it to remove the whole wing.

Obviously you will do this for both sides.  The first thing you will notice about doing this breakdown is the amount of waste you will get from one skate, almost 60% of the animal is thrown out.  To me that is not a good yield.  I can get so much more from a striper or a drum.  If you do use the carcass for a fish stock, be warned, the connective tissue in this fish is strong, and will make your stock like gelatin.  If you like your fish stock like chicken stock then go for it.

Now that you have two wings you must get the skin off.  In a fish monger’s shop, they would turn the wing upside down to prevent the spines on the outside of the wing to harm them.  Then they would skin the top of the wing upside down, removing the spiny side first.  I have never mastered that, however, I do turn the wing upside down to let the spines grip the cutting board so I can skin the bottom first.

Once yu get the skin off, cut off the outside of the wing to get rid of the spines that are on the outside.  You should wind up with two pieces of meat, but you are not done.  There is a piece of gristle that runs through the center of the wing.  Think of it as a giant pin bone.  You must filet the two pieces of wing off this.  Some restaurants do not, I do as it is very unenjoyable to crunch on.

You should now have four filets of skate wing.  There was an urban myth started by the book Jaws, that some shady establishments used a cookie cutter to cut out the wings in the shape of scallops.  This is 100% false, is there any piece of this wing that looks like a scallop?

Now what to do with this piece of meat that took so long to get?  (This post was a nightmare as well, as wordpress did not like these pictures for some reason and they either disappeared, or just went anywhere they wanted in the post)  We are going to Le Halles for the recipe.  This is an old French dish, the temptation to adopt a fake French accent is great, but I do not think my spell checker could take it.

SKATE GRENOBLOISE

1/4 cup flour

salt and pepper to taste

2 skate wings

3 pats of butter

4-5 capers

1/2 c croutons

juice of one lemon

1 spring of parsley

4-5 stalks of steamed asparagus

1/4 cup of white wine

Season the wings with the salt and pepper.  Dredge wings in the flour. Heat the first pat of butter in a saute pan on high until it bubbles.  Add the wings and sear on one side on high.  Turn down the heat to med, and flip the wings.  Add the second pat of butter.  Add the capers, lemon and wine.  Finish with the last pat of butter.  Place wings over the asparagus and pour the sauce over.  Garnish with the croutons and parsley.

Advertisement