Eating Eagle/Black rays

[wishing2Bfishing 0]

just wondering if anyone here likes to eat rays? i wouldnt mind trying it, whats the best way to kill it, clean it and cook it? are eagles better than blacks? i have been seeing a few about lately and figured that i might give it a shot. do u just cut the wings off or what?

[spinyeel 2]

I've seen Eagle Ray flaps in Cappo's, advertised as Victor Harbor Skate. :whistle: The patterns on the skin were a dead give away.

[Softy 2,991]

The wings are awesome in a smoker!

[wishing2Bfishing 0]

i was actually thinking that softy. do u have to bleed rays? if so how?

[Savagelip 4]

i cut the wings off, seasoned them and straight in the oven.. taste is average :whistle: little bit watery, wouldn't bother eating another unless i really had totbh, they taste like shit..

[kaka 0]

BBQ StingRay: https://www.google.com.au/search?q=bbq+sting+ray&client=firefox-a&hs=r7c&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=E321UbHtFqmwiQefkYGoDA&ved=0CC8QsAQ&biw=1600&bih=754#client=firefox-a&hs=Fnx&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&tbm=isch&q=bbq+stingray&spell=1&sa=X&ei=GH21UfnQOYWzkgWdnIGoCg&ved=0CFAQBSgA&bav=on.2,or.r_cp.r_qf.&bvm=bv.47534661,d.dGI&fp=5bb17e31233263d2&biw=1600&bih=754

[catch fillet release 22]

fish factory sell them as skate also.i'd sooner buy a couple of pieces to try before butchering a caught onecfr

[Ale 301]

My thoughts exactly cfr

[Del 245]

have caught eagles regular.. killed a few and smoked the flaps.. they are fantastic smoked. but havent tried them any other way.. always been curious though..

[ScaleyTom 19]

Seems a shame to kill a ray just for the wings, for something thats commonly regarded as pretty ordinary on the plate. Have tasted smoked ray wing and the texture just wasnt right, worst tasting smoked fish i have had.Thats just my opinion though. Each to their own.

[Guest]

I've also seen them in the shops and thought i try a bit once.It was horrible! Never again!

[ScaleyTom 19]

Ive also heard thats what they use for that seafood extender stuff in supermarkets and crab sticks from the fish'n'chip shop. Explains their rubbish taste.

[Guest]

Apparently also if the meat is cut into small circles it can be falsely sold as scollap meat.

[Boyington214 0]

I've heard that too Nanman. Talking to an Ex-Pro over at Ceduna one arvo and he told me that when they hauled up a ray, they would get wad-punches out and punch circular pieces out of the flaps to sell as Scallops to the fish n chip shops.

[wishing2Bfishing 0]

i have heard the scallop thing as well. by the sounds of things i wont bother needlessly killing one, plenty of fish i know taste good i can get round here

[Luke5600 61]

All boils down to how you cook it.As soon as possible after capture you want to remove the flaps (watch out for puncturing the liver if you puncture it and it bursts remove any meat off the flaps and roughly a cm away from where its permeated into the meat) and put them on ice, Alot of people say to skin it straight away but I found it didn't make too much of a difference. You can either soak the ray in milk (which will tenderize it at the same time) or soak it in brine for 2 hours prior to cooking in order to get rid of any ammonia taste that may be present in the flesh. There's alot of different ways to cook ray and so far I've only tried poaching it in water seasoned with atlantic sea salt, garlic powder, onion powder and lemon pepper which turned out beautiful and tasted pretty much like snapper. Or you can do what I did with my first one which was cooked it in a curry, I got some balti curry paste, coconut milk spicy taco seasoning (i think this was the one with paprika, onion and sun dried tomatoes in it) and added some brown onion, red capsicum and chillis. I started cooking the onions capsicums and chillis first of all then added the stingray meat into that after roughly 5 minutes to let the vegatables sweat off slightly first, I cooked that for a further 2 minutes then added in my curry paste (along with a small amount of boiling water for ease of mixing) and let that simmer for a further 10 minutes then added the coconut milk in and simmered for 20 minutes. Came out beautifully (although I used my own homegrown chillis which made this curry over the top hot as jessie found it to be LOL) I was talking to rowdy the other day as well and he said he was at a party one time and the bloke came out with some smoked stingray and offered a piece to everyone in the party and asked them to guess what it was, most guessed chicken turkey/snapper etc and were all surprised when he said it was stingray.If you want to try smoking the ray you should skin the flaps and the meat is very grainy sort of like flaps along the cartilage, cut the meat along the cartilage line in the middle of the flaps to remove all the grains then cut into chip sized pieces soak it in milk then put it in the smoker. There's no real strong fish taste to the ray either, the texture is a cross between snapper/chicken depending on how you cook it and I could happily eat it any day of the week.I pulled another flap out of the freezer yesterday and I might cook it up tomorrow so if you drop into work on saturday let me know and I'll bring some in for you to try, jess and will tried the curry I did first of all and enjoyed it.The rays themselves I found didnt really have any blood in them apart from a small amount that was present in the flaps when I cut them off.If you want to avoid wasting any part of the carcass then remove the guts from the ray and double wrap them in a freezer bag for the next time (or first) you go for sharks and use it as berley, sharks absoloutely LOVE stingray guts.Carcass you can probably put down on a drop or something in order to feed the area up bringing in crabs/"shitfish" which will in turn bring the larger predators about.I forgot as well, I haven't tried eating the smooth rays yet but from what I hear the eagle rays are the ones to eat if you are going to try one, The maoris/aboriginals/asians swear by stingray from what I hear

[ScaleyTom 19]

I like the bit about using the body for other things, seems a shame to kill a ray just for flaps.

[Luke5600 61]

yeah I'm not one to waste any fish scraps, Even if I fillet a fish and have the body left over (if I already have enough berley) I prefer to freeze the left over frames then put them out into the water somewhere to feed up the area

[archerfish 685]

Eaglies rate only "fair" for eating quality in most of my reference material.However, I went to a WEA Course quite some time ago titled "Is there fish beyond Whiting?" done by a guy called Justo del Amo. He cooked up some Skate wings which were bloody brilliant.I have attached the recipe.CheersafSkateinOrangeBrandySauce.pdfP.S. While I enjoyed it, there are still a lot of our fishy friends that I would rate further up the scale.

[Luke5600 61]

Here's a photo of a ray wing I just prepped ready to cook tomorrow, while I was cutting it up I had one of those fish coating mixtures (those ones you buy from woolies with spices mixed in with the bread crumbs) and didnt even soak the ray in milk first, cut it straight off washed it in a bit of tap water and coated it and deep fried it. Came out tasting beautifulOn the right in this photo you can see the meat I have cleaned off, and on the left you see the inner cartilage layer of the wing with the meat trimmed off. About a 10 minute job at the most (the large piece of cartilage missing is where I wanted to see how sharp my knife was after cutting it, I cut the tips of the flaps off as well as there wasn't enough meat on that part to bother with "filleting")the flap I used in the above photo came from the wings of this stingray pictured here

[ScaleyTom 19]

As ive said before, each to their own, as long as there as little wastage as possible, and nothing illegal, go for it.......enjoy But geez, those ray wings just dont even look very appetising to me :sick:

[wishing2Bfishing 0]

i shall come in and try it today if i get a chance luke, got a few holes to dig first :pinch:

[Del 245]

I like the bit about using the body for other things' date=' seems a shame to kill a ray just for flaps.[/quote']its a shame to kill a fish just for a couple of fillets... its a shame to kill an oysters just for one mouthful of snot...its a shame to kill a scallop for one tastey bite...its a shame to..... :whistle:

[netman21 0]

personally I would,nt eat a big eagle ray as they have a slight mercury taste to them and that,s cause all rays have a slight amount of mercury in them if I was going to try a ray I would be looking for one smaller in size.

[netman21 0]

in other words something u woul,nt want to regullary dine on

[Del 245]

think ive killed 3 rays in 30yeras of fishing... each time was for smoking.. and when i had plenty of people to eat it so none was wasted. there is a lot of recipes out there for it. i do like the idea of that curry above..

[bent87 0]

Interesting thread guys. Personally I don't kill bream or rays, but that's just me... Gummy sharks on the other hand, watch out. It's tough to beat fresh flake steaks in my humble opinion.

[rookiee 0]

Tried grilled sting ray flaps at hawker center during holidays in singapore and they are delicious! If you don't mind a bit of heat: http://www.mummyicancook.com/2011/09/grilled-sambal-stingray-on-banana-leaf.html

[fished out 0]

They sound like they would be good in curry, in herbs and spice and just maybe in stronger seafood pastas and soups.Skate wings, will be hard to get some die hard whiting fishos to believe that

[Del 245]

whiting in reality is bland and tasteless...a fish for people that dont like fish... such a soft flavour.. i prefer a stronger flavoured fish!

[Luke5600 61]

As ive said before' date=' each to their own, as long as there as little wastage as possible, and nothing illegal, go for it.......enjoy But geez, those ray wings just dont even look very appetising to me :sick:[/quote']Yeah the meat there doesn't look too appetizing but once cooked and you add spices/cut it down in different ways it can really change the way you look at it