The texture is the most curious part - it's firm, sort of slippery and has a noodly sort of feel to it. The skin is fatty and the flavour of the meat is almost like scallops. In fact, sometimes they are marketed as "imitation scallop" You've got cartilage in between the top and bottom of the wing and the meat scrapes easily off of the cartilage with just a fork.
One of my favourite ways to enjoy skate is the Malaysian way, because skate is a common Malaysian hawker food (i.e. from a street vendor), and the flavour comes from banana leaves, chili powder/paste, and plenty of ginger and galangal. But in the picture above, I basically pan fried it (dry with paper towel, then add salt/pepper, then fry in butter) and finished it in a hot oven. I added caper berries and browned butter on top - browned butter is basically butter which is cooked in a pan to the point that it's brown, giving it a nutty aroma. It may take a bit of practice to get the browned butter just right.
On Skate (from Monterey Bay and Encyclopaedia Britannica)
Skates are cartilaginous bottom-dwelling fish, of the superorder "ray". Previously discarded as "trash fish" and a nuisance fish, skate has become an increasingly important fishery.
According to the Monterey Bay Seafood Watch, Skate is recommended to be avoided from a conservation perspective because several skate species in the Northeast are overfished or in serious decline. Skates, like their close relatives, the sharks, are highly vulnerable to overfishing since they grow slowly and are long-lived.
