What’s for Dinner? Just Wing it! (Skate Wing that is)

Monahan's Seafood Market | Fresh Whole Fish, Fillets, Shellfish, Recipes, Catering & Lunch Counter-Ann Arbor, Michigan

Here’s another underutilized treasure for ya—skate! When we first started selling it back in the ’80s, most skate was used for lobster bait, exported or just thrown overboard. That’s hard to believe since they’re  loved all over the world.

Drawing by Mike Monahan

In France, Raie is often poached or sautéed with a lemon caper brown butter sauce. Koreans marinate their Hong-Eo in lemon hot pepper sauce and serve them uncooked on the crunchy cartilage. The Greek Selahi, Italian Razza or Spanish Raya have always been popular. It’s no wonder that this fish is so loved—its delicate sweet meat is delicious and its beautiful fan-shaped wings (actually pectoral fins) make a stunning presentation on the plate.

These ancient creatures are very close relatives of the sharks. There are 500 species and they’ve been around for 400 million years. Of the seven species off of our north Atlantic coast, we sell mainly the winter skate, also known as spotted skate. The sharp spines on these fish make them a bit tricky to fillet—get poked and you bleed like crazy and it hurts like heck! Once you taste them you’ll know know why we go to the trouble. Try the French classic raie au beurre noir or a recipe for baked skate with cucumber, capers and tomato from our own Wendy Williams that she picked up in cooking school in France.

Bon appetit!

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Monahan's Seafood

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