I get pleasure from having pescatarian visitors. They trigger me to increase my fish cookery a bit of, transferring past the usual sole, salmon and sardines. Though final week I by no means obtained an eel, this week I’ve landed a good-looking skate (also referred to as ray or rajafish, raya in Spanish).
Skate, not so widespread in your fish market, is a positive consuming fish. Associated to sharks, it doesn’t have true bones, however a cartilage construction with skinny “slats” radiating from the middle. These are the fins, normally known as “wings,” a cartilage flap coated in flesh.
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| Skate “wings,” cleaned and able to cook dinner. |
The wings might be cooked entire or reduce into smaller items for frying or for including to stews, rice or, as on this recipe, noodles. The flesh, as soon as cooked, simply slides off the cartilage in thick shreds. Skate just isn’t a fragile fish, neither in texture nor taste. The feel is agency, a bit of chewy, like scallops or shrimp. The style can be extra like squid than like sole.
It’s finest to have a fishmonger pores and skin and reduce up the skate, however, if attainable, save the trimmings to make a easy fish inventory. Skate is ready, famously, within the French method with black butter sauce and capers or, Andalusian model, with a pimentón sauce.
I am cooking items of skate in a savory fideo noodle casserole that begins with a sofrito of onions and peppers and contains spring peas, artichokes and asparagus.
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| Fideo noodles cook dinner proper within the pan with sofrito, greens and items of skate. |
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| Saffron provides the noodles a golden hue. |
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| Artichokes, peas and asparagus might be added to the noodles and fish. |
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| Use a desk knife to push the flesh off the struts of cartilage. |
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| Present visitors with a facet dish for desperdicios, the items of cartilage which might be left after the flesh has been eliminated. |
Noodle Casserole with Skate
Cazuela de Fideos con Raya
Fideo noodles are quick vermicelli that are available various thickness from thinnest angel hair, #00, to gruesa, thick (#4). Use the thick type for this recipe. If not out there, use spaghetti damaged into 2-inch lengths. Regulate cooking time to the time given on the fideo bundle. As an illustration, the items of fish will take about 10 minutes to cook dinner within the broth. If the noodles take longer, add them earlier than the fish.
You possibly can add shrimp, squid or clams to this noodle fish with the skate. If skate just isn’t in your radar, make the fideo recipe with monkfish or different agency fish.
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| Lower skate wings into items. |
Serves 4.
1 pound skate wings
Salt
¼ cup olive oil
½ cup chopped onion
½ cup peeled and chopped purple bell pepper** (see beneath for how-to)
½ cup chopped inexperienced pepper
4 cloves garlic, chopped
½ cup grated or crushed tomatoes
½ teaspoon coarse salt
2 peppercorns
20 fried or toasted almonds
¼ teaspoon saffron threads
1 tablespoon chopped parsley
½ teaspoon cumin
¼ cup white wine
1 medium potato (4 ½ ounces)
1 giant artichoke
4 cups fish inventory or water
1 bay leaf
1 ½ cups (about 7 ½ ounces) #4 fideo noodles
1 cup shelled peas
Asparagus spears, cooked (elective)
Chopped parsley or mint to garnish
Use scissors to trim the ragged edges of the wings. With a pointy knife, reduce them between the “slats” into about 8 items. Salt the fish and permit it to return to room temperature.
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| Crush almonds in mortar. |
Warmth the oil in a cazuela or huge pan. Sauté the onion on medium warmth till softened, 5 minutes. Add the 2 sorts of peppers and garlic. Sauté them 3 minutes. Add the grated tomatoes and fry 5 minutes.
Crush the coarse salt in a mortar with the peppercorns and almonds. Add the saffron, chopped parsley and cumin. Grind all the substances as finely as attainable. Stir within the wine and blend to a paste. Stir the mortar mix into the sofrito within the pan.
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| Add noodles to the pan with greens. |
Lower the potato into chunks and add to the pan with the inventory or water and bay leaf. Style for salt and add salt if wanted (if utilizing inventory, salt is probably not needed).
Snap off outer leaves of the artichoke. Lower crosswise leaving the artichoke backside and discarding the leaf ideas. Lower the underside into quarters, take away fuzzy choke. Add the quarters instantly to the liquid within the pan. Carry the liquid to a boil, scale back warmth and simmer till potatoes are partially cooked, 10 minutes.
Increase the warmth to medium-high. Add the fideo noodles to the pan with the peas. Cook dinner 2 minutes. Add the items of fish to the pan. Decrease the warmth to medium. Cook dinner 5 minutes.
Flip the items of fish over. Cook dinner till potatoes, fideos and fish are finished, about 5 minutes longer. There ought to nonetheless be some liquid left, so the noodles are juicy. Permit the pan to set 5 minutes. Serve sprinkled with parsley or mint.
**Sure, you possibly can peel a bell pepper, whether or not to make use of uncooked or cooked. Use a vegetable peeler and take away pores and skin. The place the peeler would not attain within the crevices, both go away the pores and skin or phase the pepper within the folds and peel a lot of the inaccessible strips.
Extra recipes with fideo noodles:
