Raie au Beurre Noir

Skate wing under nut-brown butter sharpened with capers, vinegar, and parsley

Origin: France

From the journey of Caper.

This is one of the great cheap dishes of France and the clearest demonstration anywhere of what a caper is actually for. Skate was for a long time the fish nobody wanted. It is cartilaginous rather than boned, it must be eaten fresh or not at all because its flesh carries urea that turns to ammonia within a day or two, and it was cheap accordingly. What it has is a sweet, faintly shellfish flavour and a texture that comes off the cartilage in ribbons, and what it needs is fat and acid. Beurre noir supplies both at once: butter cooked past golden to a deep hazelnut brown, taken off the heat, and finished with a splash of vinegar and a large spoonful of capers. The name is a mild lie and worth correcting. Beurre noir, black butter, should never be black. Butter taken to actual black is burnt, acrid, and was implicated in the mid-twentieth-century campaign against over-browned fats, after which most French kitchens quietly renamed the preparation beurre noisette and stopped short of the old colour. The correct point is a deep amber brown with the milk solids toasted and nutty and the pan smelling of hazelnuts. The capers do three things at once. They are salt, so the dish needs almost none added; they are acid, alongside the vinegar, cutting a quantity of butter that would otherwise be cloying; and they carry the mustard-family pungency of their own chemistry, which is what stops brown butter from tasting merely rich. Remove them and the plate collapses into fish and fat. It is served with plain boiled potatoes and nothing else, and it is eaten in bistros across France with no ceremony whatever.

Ingredients

Fish

2 whole skate wings, about 300 g each, skinned

Court Bouillon

1 litre water
100 ml white wine vinegar
1 whole onion, sliced
2 whole bay leaves
1 tsp black peppercorns
1 tsp sea salt

Beurre Noir

100 g unsalted butter, cut into pieces
3 tbsp capers, rinsed and drained (salt-packed soaked, or brined rinsed)
2 tbsp red wine vinegar
3 tbsp flat-leaf parsley, roughly chopped

To Finish

1 pinch freshly ground black pepper

To Serve

500 g small waxy potatoes, boiled, to serve

Method

Smell the skate before anything else. It should smell of the sea and faintly sweet. Any hint of ammonia means it is past its best and should not be cooked.
Bring the water, white wine vinegar, onion, bay, peppercorns, and salt to a simmer in a wide pan and cook for ten minutes to make a court bouillon.
Slide the skate wings in, thickest part towards the centre, and poach at the barest tremble for eight to twelve minutes depending on thickness, until the flesh comes away from the cartilage with light pressure.
Lift the wings out carefully with a fish slice onto warm plates and blot away any liquid. Keep them warm.
Wipe out a small heavy pan and melt the butter over a medium heat. Let it foam, subside, and continue to cook, swirling, for three to four minutes until the milk solids have turned a deep hazelnut brown and the smell is nutty.
Take the pan off the heat and immediately add the capers. They will spit; stand back.
Add the red wine vinegar, which will hiss and bubble, then the parsley, and swirl the pan to bring it together.
Pour the butter, capers, and all, over the skate. Grind over black pepper and serve at once with the boiled potatoes.

Notes

Salt-packed capers, soaked for twenty minutes, are the better choice and are what a good French kitchen uses. Brined capers should be rinsed thoroughly; capers in vinegar can be used but reduce the added vinegar to a teaspoon. Do not salt the dish. Between the court bouillon and the capers it will have all it needs, and the usual failure with this recipe is a plate that is too salty rather than too bland. The same treatment is classic on plaice, on brill, and on grilled bone-in ray, and it is the standard sauce for calf's brains in the old repertoire. The vegetarian version, brown butter and capers over boiled or roasted cauliflower, is unexpectedly good and has become a restaurant fixture in its own right. If skate is unavailable, ask for ray wing, which is the same thing under a different name at most fishmongers. Frozen skate is acceptable here in a way it is not for most fish, since freezing halts the ammonia problem.

The Gastrographer

Name: Raie au Beurre Noir
Prep time: 10 min
Cook time: 20 min
Total time: 30 min
Yield: 2
Cuisine: France
Ingredients: 2 whole skate wings, about 300 g each, skinned; 1 litre water; 100 ml white wine vinegar; 1 whole onion, sliced; 2 whole bay leaves; 1 tsp black peppercorns; 1 tsp sea salt; 100 g unsalted butter, cut into pieces; 3 tbsp capers, rinsed and drained (salt-packed soaked, or brined rinsed); 2 tbsp red wine vinegar; 3 tbsp flat-leaf parsley, roughly chopped; 1 pinch freshly ground black pepper; 500 g small waxy potatoes, boiled, to serve

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Journey Point Map Key

Ingredient originTrade or transit route

Became a culinary stapleColonial / trade control