Sous Vide Skate Wings

First post here is going to be fairly detailed look at an interesting approach to cooking skate wings.

Skate wings are underrated as a culinary fish and therefore very reasonably priced - usually about $6 a kilo and not much wastage when cleaned.

The technique I'm using here involves forming the skate meat into a thick piece by sous videing the flesh and then pressing it in the refrigerator for a few hours allowing the natural collagens in the fish to bind the separate fillets together.

For the Sous Vide bath I'm using a Sunbeam Duos Sous Vide which is like a Breville Sous Vide Supreme but more affordable. Mine cost $170 new and is excellent for home sous vide experiments where a commercial immersion heater, Nomiku or other solutions are unaffordable or impractical.

Sous Vide Skate Wings

First remove the upper and lower fillets from a good size piece of wing.

The piece used here is about 1kg.

The skate consists of a thick and thin fillet on either side of a thin layer of cartilage.

Remove the larger fillet by running your knife along the cartilage

Turn the wing over and remove the thinner fillet

With the two fillets removed you can now get rid of the thin flexible layer of cartilage.

Reverse the thin piece and lay it on top of the thick piece

Cut the whole lot in half and place the halves together

The aim is to create a single piece of flesh of even thickness

Vacuum seal in a bag.

Place into the water bath - this piece was in for about 45 mins at 56 C.

Remove from the bath and then press in the refrigerator under a heavyish weight for a few hours.

After pressing unbag and rinse then pat dry.

The natural collagens in the fish will have bound the layers together.

Trim and divide into portions. The four here are approx 150g each.

Pan fry in butter quickly for colour and then warm through in a low oven.

Finished and served with a nice beurre blanc. 

I'll be posting some more of my sous vide experiments using the Sunbeam Duos shortly so check back now and again.

Hope you found this interesting.

While cooking this: "Descending Moonshine Dervishes" - Terry Riley

While eating this: "Denizens of the Deep" - Ferrante & Teicher