A New Adventure: Fettuccine with Skate Sauce

 

As you can probably tell from our previous post, we love ourselves some pasta with seafood, and Mario Batali's cookbook has been a great resource for us to learn exciting new seafood pasta dishes. One of the dishes in the book that had always intrigued us was pasta with skate sauce - primarily because we had no idea what "skate" was, and it wasn't listed on Fresh Direct.

New fish? Yum!

Well the other day we found some stake at a local fish market and figured that made for the perfect opportunity to give this a try. For those of you who haven't worked with this fish before, it's pretty interesting. It's got a very distinctive shape, and breaks apart almost completely when you cook it. It has a taste reminiscent of tuna fish, so despite it's unique shape, you'll feel fairly comfortable when eating it.

Please wake me when the food's ready - I'm tired from chasing Pepper.

Making the Dish
What You'll Need

1/2 lb. fettuccine
1/2 lb skate
1 head broccoli
1 small onion
2 cloves garlic
1/2 cup white wine
1 bunch fresh parsley
2 cups tomato sauce
2 tbsp olive oil

You'll need to have a couple things done ahead of time to save yourself some time. Chop up your broccoli into small florets, chop up your onions and garlic, and apply salt and pepper to the skate. Slice the seasoned skate up into 2 inch pieces.

Chop the broccoli into small florets, like these

In a saucepan, sauté the garlic and onion over medium heat and add the broccoli as well until it's nicely coated. As it cooks, add the skate and cook until the skate starts to break up.

Cooking the broccoli and skate. Notice how the texture of the skate transforms.

Once the skate has broken up and the broccoli has softened add white wine and bring to a boil, and once reduced, add in two cups of tomato sauce. Stir together and season with salt and pepper.

Simmering together the broccoli, skate, and tomato sauce.

Cook the fettuccine until a minute shy of the package directions in salted water, and once complete, remove from the water and add directly to the sauce. Add in some fresh chopped parsley.

Seasoning the whole thing.

Toss and coat over high heat to let the flavors marry, and if the sauce needs to loosen at all add a touch of the pasta water.

Tossing everything together.

That's it!

The Result
Very quick and very simple, but very delicious. The skate is flavorful and the texture blends well with the broccoli and pasta.

In short - if you want a healthy, delicious, and different meal that only takes a few minutes to make (and you can find skate), this is what you should try.

Have a favorite seafood pasta dish? Let us know about it in the comments so we can try it!


Click through for the full ingredients list!