skate with 3 alliums, lemon, marjoram, parsley; mizuna

skate_mizuna

The picture may be misleading. It actually represents 2 small sautéed skate wings touching each other on the plate, embracing some gently wilted mildly-peppery mizuna (aka shui cai, kyona, Japanese mustard, potherb mustard, Japanese greens, California peppergrass, or spider mustard).

mustards_gorzynski_farm

L to R, the mizuna, plus mustard spinach and chinese mustard at the market

bulls_blood_beet

‘Bull’s Blood’ micro beet is the brilliantly-colored micro vegetable on the skate

micro_red_chard

(picked beet over these micro chard, mostly because the latter was so Xmas-y)

 

  • four 4-ounce skate wings from P.E. & D.D. Seafood, coated all over with a coarse polenta seasoned with salt and pepper, sautéed in olive oil (and a bit of butter) for 3 minutes or so on each side inside a heavy enameled cast iron oven pan (the only difficult part of this recipe is turning them over without breaking them up), removed, about 1 1/2 tablespoons of butter, one small Japanese scallion from Norwich Meadows Farm, one tiny ‘red wing’ onion from Keith’s Farm, and 2 small cloves of garlic from from S. & S.O. Produce Farms, all sliced or chopped, introduced into it and stirred over a now-lowered flame, followed by the addition of a little more butter, the juice from half of a very sweet organic lemon from Whole Food Market some chopped marjoram from Stokes Farm and a bit of chopped parsley from Norwich Meadows Farm, stirring for a bit to blend everything, finishing on the plates with a scattering of ‘Bull’s Blood’ micro beet from Windfall Farm
  • one bunch of purple mizuna from Gorzynski Ornery Farm, very slightly wilted in a pan in which a halved garlic clove S. & S.O. Produce Farms had first been allowed to barely begin to brown in a little olive oil, seasoned with salt and pepper and drizzled with a bit more oil
  • the wine was an Argentinian (Mendoza) white, Santa Julia Viognier Plus Mendoza 2015 from Chelsea Wine Vault
  • the music was Marc-Antoine Charpentier’s 1688 opera, ‘David & Jonathas’, a tragédie en musique which does not end well for anyone, William Christie conducting Les Arts Florissants [note; in its time, the opera was very big in Jesuit land]