Skate wings!? Skate’s have wings?

Les Halles
Skate Grenobloise, page 1oo.

Our third attempt in the Les Halles handbook was Skate Grenobloise. Skate wings. After hearing horror stories similar to those of shark fin procuring, I was skeptical (of both the stories and the actual fish). Labeled as a “junk fish” in the book, I was pretty sure we’d have an extremely difficult time tracking down the elusive wings. I was right. After being promised they would have them on Thursday, we drove down to Whole Foods after a long day of work/school, in the middle of rush hour to snag some of the elusive fish. Guess what? They didn’t. Not altogether shocking, tracking down hard to find ingredients only to come up empty handed is my lot in life. Unhappily, we grabbed some tilapia as a sub and made out way home (back through traffic).

I swear the fish monger-etts told me that they would have skate wings. And after this grueling trek into downtown Bellevue (who the hell designed the Whole Foods parking lot anyway. That guy and I are going to fight) I am hereby resolving to call, Whole Foods, Uwajamaya, Viet Wha, Big John’s PFI, The Spanish Table… the next time we go a hunting for the, as Kevin puts it ever so eloquently “eh, do we really need that?”

Ok, so skate, er tilapia gernobloise combines two of my favorite flavors, salty briny capers, and luscious rich butter. And on fish! How can you go wrong? You can’t! We simply coated the fish in seasoned flour (thank you Kathy Casey’s Dish Delish Cha Cha seasoning sea salt), pan fried it in butter then made a quick sauce of segmented lemons, butter, capers and homemade croutons.

FYI a la grenobloise means with a sauce that hails from the town of Grenoble, in the Dauphine region of France. After having finished memorizing dozens of archaic French sauces for a recent test, I was tickled to find that I recognized many sauces and preparations in this cookbook. Espangole? Know it. Blanquette? Know it. Beurre Rouge? Know it. A la charcutiere? Um, hello! Know it.

(Yes, go ahead and point out that I don’t know the beef cuts in French)

What were left of the croutons were great (Mary has a tendency to aggressively “graze” key ingredients-(What, I’m hungry, plus I need to make sure that they taste ok. What if they were rotten, or worse yet, poisoned? I do it for you toodie.), slap the fish next to some greens and you were good to go. The fish takes a lot of the credit on this one, oh, and butter. Can’t really go wrong with that combo. Oh, and the leftovers were great, even cold.

Recipe Ease. 9, maybe a 5 for Kevin. He can’t segment lemons, or oranges, or anything that needs segmenting.
Time. 8. The prep can take a bit if your knife skills aren’t up to par, but actually fridge to dinnertime was quite low.
Make again. 10. This is a perfect light fish preparation, great, I’m sure with just about any white fish.