skate on ice

i first tasted skate wing at the casino de divonne, a bustling, glitzy gambling establishment located in a tiny village on the outskirts of geneva where i lived for eighteen years. at that time, the swinging sixties, the casino boasted one of the best restaurants in the region, and my (ex) husband and i used to dine there often.

yes! those were the days, my friend.

over the years i've eaten my fair share of haute cuisine in many parts of the world, including unforgettable meals in the best three-star restaurants in france. i observed that french cuisine has a solid tradition & follows strict rules, including which ingredients go into certain classic dishes. for example, making soup begins with a leek, boiled potatoes accompany fish, string beans are a course unto themselves, salad is served after the main course. true, there are exceptions; renegade avant-garde chefs in france now use unusual ingredients & far-fetched (for france) food combinations, but if you ask any good french housewife how to prepare skate wing (aile de raie) she'll answer without a moment's hesitation, avec du buerre noir et câpres. that's how they prepared it at the casino that first time i ate it, and how it was prepared everywhere else i ate in france. skate wing is pan fried & served with blackened butter (not burnt but carefully darkened with heat) and capers. A good squeeze of lemon too, bien sur. delicious!

i've been well trained: until yesterday, if anyone asked me how to prepare skate wing i'd have told them, "with blackened butter and capers." a quick peruse in my french cookbooks confirms this combination. americans, horror of horrors, bone their skate wings before they bread & fry them up like schnitzels. mario batali bones his too. i'm sure other cultures have different ways to prepare this marvelous fish, but i never came across any until a recent visit to a korean market where i found myself standing in front of a glass display case filled with fresh skate wings lying on a bed of chipped ice. What joy! Memories came flooding into my mind. Excited, i told the fishmonger i'd take one, pointing to a thick, bony chunk, glistening white & shiny, as i thought about good, sweet butter & briny capers. while he weighed & wrapped it i turned to the korean lady who stood beside me waiting her turn, and asked how she would prepare it.

"steamed," she said, "with sauce made of sesame oil, soy sauce, garlic & green onion. And a little red pepper too," she added with a wink.

i was shocked. steamed? really? she smiled & nodded with the same conviction a frenchwoman would have shown describing the buerre noir avec câpres sauce to pour over pan-fried aile de raie.

so i did it; came home & steamed that wing in a bamboo steamer lined with parchment paper, & now i can say with complete assurance that steamed is my favorite -- dare i say the best -- way to prepare skate wing. it was so tender & moist & delicious; the succulent flesh slid off the bones like butter, & the sauce, contrived from my own ingredients, similar to the korean lady's recipe, was a delicious accompaniment.

never once thought about butter & capers.