Cooking alone can be fun, but I find that I have more fun when I am cooking with someone else. As Valentine's Day recently passed, my significant other and I decided to have a date night where we would cook together and enjoy the local seafood we made with some wine.
My boyfriend and I always love to try new things, whether it be a hobby or food. Today, we got to do both! We have never really cooked together before, but we both enjoy cooking, so we thought we would give it a shot! For our date night, my boyfriend and I decided we wanted to make something simple, as we both are not very savvy when it comes to cooking. After discussing some ideas with Kate and perusing the Eating with the Ecosystem website, we decided to make skate wing piccata. Skate wing piccata is very simple to make and does not require many ingredients. In fact, we had most of the ingredients at home!
After determining what we needed from the grocery store, we set off and picked up some capers and a bottle of sauvignon blanc that we thought would pair nicely with the dish. When we got home, we set up our ingredients. What we needed for this recipe was skate, oil, lemon juice, flour, butter, capers, and salt and pepper. That's it!
To begin, we worked together to follow the recipe and measure out all the ingredients so that it would be less stressful once we actually started cooking. Doing this part together was really nice, because it lessened the time it would take to do it individually, and we got to chat about how hungry and excited we were to eat!
Cooking the Skate
To make the skate, we actually had to cut it into pieces in order to have it fit in the pan we had. This also made it easier to cook, as it was a lot thinner! In order to ensure that the fish was crispy and well seasoned, we coated the raw pieces in flour and salt and pepper. This part made a bit of a mess (that my partner ended up cleaning later). We heated up some oil in a pan, and then we pan seared the skate wing. It didn't take any time at all, just about four minutes on each side.
Once that was cooked, we put the fish aside and we wiped the pan of residual oil so we could use the pan for the next step. That's the best part about making this recipe; it only takes one pan! This is awesome for me because I am a college student with minimal space and kitchen utensils.
The Sauce
While I was about to start getting the sauce going, I had my partner start boiling some pasta. (The recipe didn’t call for pasta but we thought it would be a nice addition to the dish and make it more filling.) I sometimes find when I am cooking alone, I start the pasta way too late because I forget about it, but having him in charge of the pasta ensured that everything was ready at the same time. I added the butter, lemon juice and capers to the pan and let them cook down until it formed a golden colored sauce. By this time the pasta was ready, and we were ready to plate!
I spun the pasta around each plate with the tongs to give it a more professional look, which kind of worked! Carefully, I placed the skate wing pieces on top of each mountain of pasta, to prevent them from falling apart. Then, the best part; the sauce! I delicately poured the sauce over the fish and the pasta. It was so carefully poured, that I felt as though I was filming a commercial for it! It looked so tasty!
Plating
To finish it off and set the scene for a date night, I set the table with our silverware and napkins (yes…they were just paper towels folded to look more fancy), and poured us each a glass of wine. For our dinner, the wine selection was Oyster Bay Sauvignon Blanc, which definitely paired nicely with fish. I chose this wine by using the information about wine and seafood pairings, which can be found in my previous post.
We then dug in! While doing so, we chatted about our days and our plans for the weekend and how much fun we had cooking together! It was a perfect date night.
As for how the dish turned out, I think it turned out really well. It looked really beautiful and it tasted pretty good. Personally, I am not a huge fan of lemon or capers, so I think that the sauce was not my favorite, but the skate itself was really good! This was my first time trying a skate wing, and I thought the texture was very good, and it definitely had a sweeter taste than what I was used to with fish. I think the next time I make something with skate wings, I will probably try a different sauce, but overall it tasted good, but the experience was really fun!
As for my boyfriend, he loved this dish. He loved the sauce so much, and he really loved the skate wing. Prior to this, he has not had much experience with seafood, and he has never tried skate wing, so he was pleasantly surprised with how much he liked it. He even went as far as to mention that this was one of the best things I have ever made. I am really happy he liked it, and again, it was a lot of fun.
Finally, the wine paired beautifully. The wine was crisp and acidic, yet very light, and it complimented the lemony flavor of the sauce really well, and cut the tenderness of the fish. It was a great choice, and I definitely will pair this type of fish with sauvignon blanc again next time.
Overall, this was a really fun experience, and I am glad my boyfriend and I decided to cook for our date night. This experience allowed us to stay in and catch up about our week and laugh and have fun, while also trying something new together. This experience was very pleasant, and I definitely would recommend this type of date night next time you and your partner are stumped on what to do. It definitely brought us closer and allowed us to discover a new hobby and food we both enjoy!