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SKATE, FRIED (another way)
When the fish are very small, pickle them in vinegar, salt, pepper, a sliced onion, some parsley, and lemon-juice, for about an hour. Next drain them, and dip them into an omelet, and then into flour. Then fry them in hot dripping, and send them up either with or without sauce. When skate are boiled with the pickle in which they have been steeped, the skin must remain while boiling, otherwise the colour of the marinade will dye the fish; take off the skin after the skate are-done, and dress immediately.
A brief marinade, an egg-and-flour coat, and a hot fat fry. Two words in the original mislead modern readers: "pickle" here means a short marinade, not a preserve, and "omelet" means beaten seasoned egg, not a cooked one.
- "Dip them into an omelet"This is beaten whole egg, loosened and seasoned, used as the wash that holds the flour. Nothing is cooked first. Egg then flour gives a thin crisp shell rather than the thick crust of flour-egg-crumb.
- The pickle is a one-hour marinadeVinegar, salt, pepper, sliced onion, parsley and lemon juice, no measurements given; the original implies enough liquid to steep the fish. Longer than an hour and the acid begins to firm and whiten the flesh.
- Drain and dry properlyThe hinge of the dish. Wet fish will not hold flour and will spit in the fat. Pat the pieces dry after draining, then egg, then flour, and fry at once.
- Very small skateProbably whole young fish, sometimes sold as maids or maiden ray. Modern fishmongers sell wings instead. Use small wings or wings cut into two or three portions, and cut the frying time accordingly.
- Dripping and heatBeef dripping was the standard frying fat. Any neutral oil at 350-375F works; the fish is thin and needs three to four minutes a side at most.
- Freshness matters more than with most fishSkate carries urea in its flesh, which breaks down to ammonia as it ages. A faint ammonia smell means the fish is past it; the marinade will mask it briefly but not fix it. Buy fish that smells clean and use it the same day.
- The skin-on boiling noteThe last sentence is a separate instruction for poaching skate in its marinade: leave the skin on so the vinegar and onion do not stain the flesh, then skin it hot. Skin peels away easily from warm skate and stubbornly from cold.
- SourcingCommon skate is critically endangered and protected in several European fisheries. What is sold as skate today is usually thornback ray or a related species; check with the fishmonger.
- YieldAround 6 oz of trimmed skate per person as a main course, less as one of several fried dishes in a Victorian meal.
Skate was cheap fish in nineteenth-century Britain, landed in quantity and sold well below turbot or sole. The method described here marinates first and fries after: acid and aromatics, then flour and hot fat. The instruction about the skin reflects a real problem with cooking fish in a coloured marinade, since onion and vinegar will tint pale flesh grey. Skate has a slightly ammoniac character, a consequence of the urea sharks and rays carry in their tissues, and vinegar and lemon are often said to answer it.