Yes, we prepared and ate skate!

We went to Lucky Supermarket and found skate wing in the fish section (about C$9 for one wing). Skate is just another name of ray (as in stingray). I probably have eaten it on two or three occasions in the Philippines. Once I distinctly remember it being in a salad, and another time in a coconut broth. Both time, delicious.

The fishmonger offered to clean the skate wing for us, but noooo ... Y wanted to do it all by himself. So as soon as we got home, we had to go hunting on YouTube to figure out what to do with the thing! Lest we not have lunch. This is the first time we've bought skate wing, so this was quite the adventure.

 
So armed with what to do, here's how Y handled the skate, and how I handled the camera ...

 Slippery little bugger! Washed and ready to go ...

Those spines actually looked pretty intimidating. I was wondering how those would come off. (Me: I don't want to eat those ...)

 The underside of the skate wing. Pretty leathery.

  And those evil-looking spines. After getting pricked, Y took extra precautions with peeling off the skin. No pics of Y pulling off the skin ... I scooted off because he needed to concentrate. About 15 minutes later ... ta-dah!

Here's the skate wing without all the skin and trimmed of the cartilage. Y kept the bone intact though. Seriously a lot of flavour when there is bone in a fish. 

Buttered skate wing  

(using Jamie Oliver's Skates Wing, p. 83 The Naked Chef minus the prosciutto, radicchio and capers)

Here's what happened:

1. Patted dry.
2. Seasoned both sides with salt and pepper.
3. Lightly dusted both sides with corn starch (or flour). 
4. Then Y whipped out our trusty (and extremely heavy) cast iron pan, heated it up to very hot (smoking lightly)
5. Melted about 5 tablespoons of butter and cooked both sides of the skate to golden brown (about 2 minutes each side). 
6. Popped the whole pan with skate into a hot oven (450 F) for about 4-5 minutes .... and pulled it out ... voila!

The smell is wonderful. The meat is extremely tender and moist, and tasted like crab! We paired this with our usual white steamed Japanese rice, a fresh tomato and coriander salad and some fruit juice. Simple and delicious!

Y didn't trim the "fins" off -- they fried beautifully and were nice and crunchy!

We cleaned off the one side and here is the cartilaginous layer or "bone" exposed. The meat coming from here is rather fatty. Flipped this over and lots more meat!

All in all, a worthy food adventure, where the familiar becomes familiar once again!