Skate with cheese sauce

This recipe is ideal if there is skate left over after cooking a skate dish such as raie au beurre noir.

It makes a lovely supper dish or it can be served as a starter.

Preparation Time: 15 Mins

Cooking Time: 45 Mins

Total Time: 1 Hr

Ingredients

For 4 servings…

  Cheese sauce   

30 cl                Skate  - cooked, boned

2                    Potatoes  - cooked and sliced   

  Breadcrumbs  - dried        

  Butter            

For the sauce

30 gms            Butter       

1 tbs               Flour        

10 cl                Bouillon  - from cooking fish - strained    

10 cl                Milk  - creamy         

                     Pepper  - freshly ground, white 

                     Salt          

1 pinch            Nutmeg    

2 tbs               Parmesan cheese  - grated       

Method

To make the sauce

Melt the butter and stir in the flour.  When it is smooth add the warmed bouillon from cooking the fish and then the warmed milk.  Stir until the sauce is creamy, season lightly with pepper, salt and nutmeg.  Leave to simmer very gently with a diffuser mat under the saucepan for 15 minutes - stirring frequently.  Stir in the grated cheese.

These quantities are enough half a pint of cooked skate.

To assemble and cook the gratin…

Line a gratin dish with a layer of half of the sauce, put the skate in the middle of it and put a ring of sliced potatoes round the edge.  Pour the rest of the sauce over the top - covering the potatoes as well as the fish.  Strew with breadcrumbs and a few little nuts of butter and bake in a fairly hot oven (200°C) for 15 minutes.  Finish off for a minute under a hot grill.

Variations

The Parmesan can be replaced with Gruyère.

Wine recommendations

          A white wine.

  Conventional

           Côte Chalonnaise blanc

  Interesting

           Mâcon

           Picpoul de Pinet

           Pinot Gris