Cassell's dictionary of cookery

Skate, Choosing of. — Skate varies in quality more than most fish. The best is broad and thick, prickly on the back, with the brown side brown and healthy-looking, and the under side of a delicate creamy whiteness. Large fish are firmer and altogether more profitable than small fish, having more flesh in proportion to the quantity of gristle. The upper skin should be removed, and it should be stripped off from the middle outwards. If skate has a strange smell, unlike the ordinary smell of fish, it should be discarded as dangerous. " Skate," says Dr. Kitchener, " is a very good fish when it is in good season, but no fish so bad when it is otherwise. Those persons who like it firm and dry should have it crimped, but those who like it tender should have it plain, and ate not earlier than the second day ; and, if cold weather, three or four days old it is better ; it cannot be kept too long if perfectly sweet. Skate, if young, cats very fine crimped and fried." Skate, Crimped. — Skin the skate on both sides, cut it in strips the length of the fish and an inch broad, roll each length round the finger, and tie it with thread. Lay the rolled strips for an hour or two in salted water mixed with a table-spoonful of vinegar, or in cold spring water. Fish to be crimped should be taken as soon as possible after it is dead. The inhuman practice of crimping it while alive cannot be too strongly deprecated. Crimped skate is generally sold cut in slices, rolled and tied with string, and with a little piece of the liver in each roll. Put the fish into fast boiling salted water, and boil it gently until done enough. Take it up, drain it, remove the string, and serve on a napkin with one of the sauces recommended for boiled skate in a tureen, or without a napkin and with the sauce poiired over it. Time, fifteen to twenty minutes. Probable cost, 4d. to 6d. per pound. Skate, Curried. — Curried skate requires to be cooked very carefully, or it will drop to pieces. Boil two pounds of skate with a little of the liver ; drain it well, and put it on a dish. Whilst it is boiling, slice two onions and a good-sized apple, and fry them in a little butter till soft. Rub them patiently through a sieve, and mix smoothly with the pulp a tea-spoonful of curry powder, a dessert-spoonful of curry paste, a tea-spoonful of ground rice, and about a pint of stock. Boil the sauce, and stir it frequently. When it is thick and smooth pour it upon the fish in the dish, and send rice boiled for curry to table in a separate dish. Time, about twenty minutes to boil the fish. Probable cost, 4d. to 6d. per lb. Skate, Dressed, To Re-dress.— Pick the flesh from the bones, mince finely, and mix with it its bulk in finely-grated breadcrumbs. Add a seasoning of salt, pepper, and grated nutmeg ; moisten the preparation with butter, and mix in a little chopped parsley. Beat it till smooth, bind it together with yolk of egg, and form it into the shape of corks or balls. Fry these in hot fat, drain them, and serve on a neatly-folded napkin. Time to fry, ten minutes.