Skate with black butter

We stock up on fish at Bishops Waltham's fishmongers, Anyfish. Fishmongers have a better and more varied supply of fish than supermarkets and it's always fresh. I tend to buy plenty and freeze the majority as it takes me a 40 min round trip so I go to the fishmongers about once a month.

I have quit on taking a list to the fishmongers. They rely mainly on locally sourced fish and you don't always know what they have in stock. If I make the mistake of going late on the day, they are also more likely to have run out on some fish or another.

I have learnt to go after breakfast and enter the shop with an open mind. I buy what they have in stock and figure out what to do with it later.

This time it was skate. I bought a wing planning on scattering it on a salad but then found this recipe on Kate Whiteman's The ultimate book of fish and shellfish and decided to cook it for my partner. The wing was quite big and we ended up sharing it.

Serves: 1 person.

Ingredients:

1 skate wing
splash of red wine vinegar or malt vinegar
2 tsp capers
salt and pepper to taste
parsley to taste
20g butter

Method:

Put the skate wing in a large, shallow pan. Cover with cold water, a pinch of salt and a splash of vinegar.
Bring to the boil, skim the surface, then lower the heat and simmer gently for about 10-12 min, until the skate flesh comes away from the bone easily. Carefully drain the skate and peel off the skin. Skate's wings are covered by a clear slime which regenerates even after death and I think this is what makes the skim at the surface of the boiling water. However, I did not have to skim anything, so perhaps this one did not have much slime. It also did not have a skin on at all. The fishmonger must have already removed it.
Transfer the skate to a warmed serving dish, season with salt and pepper, sprinkle over the cappers and parsley. Keep hot. I find it always very difficult to keep food warm so what I did was to put the timer for 10 min to cook the skate (and 10 min was enough to cook it through) and start the next step at the same time. The skate and the butter were ready almost simultaneously.
In a small pan, heat the butter until it foams and turns a rich nutty brown (not black!). Pour the butter over the skate. The butter melted well but then it developed tiny brown bits on the bottom. I stirred but it wouldn't disappear. I am not sure if I did anything wrong! Anyway, it tasted like butter so I poured it carefully over the skate to avoid the brown bits on the plate.
Pour a splash of vinegar into the pan and boil until reduced by about ⅔. Drizzle over the skate and serve. As I pour the vinegar in the pan, it reacted violently with the remaining butter and splashed everywhere. I turned off the heat and decided to ignore this step!