Blog 5

My favorite food to cook is steamed skate. Not everyone might know what a skate is, it is a fish that looks like a stingray and this recipe can be replaced by a stingray if you want. Skate and stingray are widely consumed in Asian countries and seen as a delicacy. I had a chance to eat steamed skate at a Korean restaurant in Los Angeles a few years ago and absolutely fell in love with the food. For people that do not like fish, or doesn’t like visually displeasing food, I do not recommend trying my recipe. I had a hard time trying steamed skate as it didn’t look appetizing to me when I first saw it. However, if you like to try new food and have exceptional taste, I recommend you to try my recipe. The reason why I’m sharing this recipe is because steamed skate became our family’s favorite after I cooked it at my home a couple of times. I want people to enjoy and try new foods that they never had before.

    The first steamed skate I ate had a dry rub of Korean chili paste, (Gochujang) and sesame seeds mixed with other ingredients. The fish was dry but had a nice taste. Skate tastes like chicken and fish mixed together. Skate is covered with soft cartilages that are found in every part of the body and it is exceptionally crunchy. When eaten with its soft meat, you can truly experience a new world of texture. The second steamed skate I tried was covered in a soy sauce based broth and was very moist and tasted a lot like soy sauce. My recipe that I learned combines the two recipes.

Ingredients:

• 5-9 pieces of skate
• One spoonful of minced garlic
• Two spoons of Gochujang (Korean chili paste)
• Four to six spoons of soy sauce

-For gochujang and soy sauce, add as much as you want, keeping the mixture’s thickness almost like honey

• One spoonful of sesame seeds
• Three pinches of finely diced scallions
• Half spoon of sugar
• One whole radish, Korean or Japanese radish

         -Buy something that you can fill the bottom of a pot

Step 1. Please mix garlic, gochujang, soy sauce, sesame seeds, scallions, and sugar in a bowl.

           -Cover the bowl with something and put it in the fridge for at least 30 minutes to an hour.

Step 2. Prepare the skate. Inspect the meat by skimming through every part with your finger to look for any unskinned parts. If you feel something sharp and feel like sandpaper, cut that part out with a knife.

Step 3. Get a pot big enough and fill the bottom of the pan with radish cut into 2 or 3 inches width wise. Pour water so the radishes are half submerged.

Step 4. Put the skate on top of the radish. Turn on the gas on between high and medium and put the lid on the pot. Cook for 10 to 15 minutes.

Step 5. Serve the skate with the sauce you put in your refrigerator!