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Thornback, Fried
Clean and skin the fish, cut into slices about an inch thick the part which is usually eaten, and dry them with a soft cloth. Dredge them with flour, and let them lie for half an hour or more. Fry them in hot fat until they are brightly browned, and when they are done upon one side turn them upon the other. Drain them on blotting-paper to clear them from fat, and serve on a hot dish. Garnish with parsley. If preferred, the slices may be dipped in egg and bread-crumbs instead of being floured before they are fried. Time to fry, ten to twelve minutes. Probable cost, variable, but generally inexpensive.
A plain fry-up of skate, from the days when ray was cheap fishmonger's stock rather than a menu item. Most of what needs saying concerns buying the fish and judging its freshness.
- What thornback isThornback ray, Raja clavata, one of the skates, named for the row of thorny bucklers down its back. "The part which is usually eaten" means the two triangular wings; the body and tail are discarded. A fishmonger will sell wings already skinned and trimmed.
- Buy the right skateThornback is still landed and sold commercially, but common or blue skate (Dipturus batis) is prohibited in EU and UK waters and several other rays are restricted. Ask what species you are being handed, and buy from a counter that knows.
- The freshness test that mattersSkate carries urea in its flesh, which breaks down to ammonia as it ages. A faint sharpness in a day-old wing cooks off; anything with a distinct ammonia smell should be refused outright. This is the one judgement the recipe assumes you can make and does not mention.
- Cutting the wingAn inch-thick slice is only possible across the thick inner edge of a large wing. Thinner outer portions can be left as pieces and will cook faster, so keep sizes together in the pan.
- Frying fat and heatShallow-fry in about half an inch of fat at 350-375F. Ten to twelve minutes suits genuinely inch-thick pieces; thin tapered ends need four or five. The flesh is done when it lifts off the cartilage in ribbons.
- Cartilage, not boneSkate has no true bones. The wing is ranks of soft cartilage which stay in place and are eaten around, not picked out. Do not mistake the pale cartilage for undercooked flesh.
- Blotting-paperKitchen paper. Nineteenth-century blotting-paper was unsized and unprinted, and Victorian cookery books regularly call for it to drain fried food.
- The half-hour restLetting the floured slices stand lets surface moisture hydrate the flour into a thin paste that is more likely to brown and cling than to slough off in the fat. Worth keeping.
- YieldReckon one wing of 8-10 oz per person, with lemon or a caper-and-butter sauce, which the recipe leaves you to supply.
Skate and ray were long the cheap end of the fish trade in Britain, plentiful as bycatch in the trawl and sold at a price that put them on working tables rather than in grand kitchens "variable, but generally inexpensive," as Cassell's has it. The thornback was the commonest of the several rays sold under the loose name "skate." Cassell's New Dictionary of Cookery, an alphabetical reference compiled for the late-Victorian household, gives it the same brisk treatment as any other cheap fish, with the flour-or-egg-and-crumbs choice left to the cook. The economics have since reversed. Ray is now a specialist purchase, and pressure on skate stocks has put several species out of reach entirely.