Spiced Skate Rillettes With Bordier Lemon-Olive Oil Butter

A fish rillettes built on curry, cumin and ginger, then mounted with Bordier Lemon-Olive Oil Butter and potted while it is still warm. Rillettes are usually pork. This one is ray, poached in seaweed stock, marinated in white wine and citrus, then bound with butter added off the heat piece by piece. Bordier rates it as difficult, and the difficulty is entirely in the last two minutes: fold the butter in too fast or too hot and the emulsion breaks. It serves four as a starter and holds in the refrigerator once it is sealed.

Why this works

Ray has a texture no other fish quite matches. The flesh sits in long parallel strands over cartilage, and when it is cooked it pulls apart into ribbons rather than flakes. That is exactly the structure rillettes want. You do not shred it, you barely have to: it comes off the bone already in threads that will hold sauce.

The butter is the binder, and Bordier's Lemon-Olive Oil version is the right one for the job. Made in 2009 at a chef's request, it carries lemon-infused extra-virgin olive oil through the churn. Cold butter whisked into a warm reduction off the heat is a classic monter au beurre, and the olive oil in this butter makes the emulsion a little more forgiving than pure butterfat would be. The citrus also does real work against a spice list that runs curry, cumin, ginger and Espelette chilli. Without acid, that combination goes muddy fast.

Ingredients

Bordier's page calls the fish stingray. In the US you will find the same thing at the fish counter as skate wing, which is what to ask for. Seaweed stock cubes are sold at Asian and specialty grocers.

Ingredient	Metric	US
Stingray (skate wing)	250 g	8¾ oz
Bordier Lemon-Olive Oil Butter	60 g	2 oz
Shallot, chopped	1 small	1 small
Lime	1	1
Lemon, plus its juice	1	1
Grated ginger	1 tbsp	1 tbsp
Flat-leaf parsley	1 tbsp	1 tbsp
Dry white wine	5 cl	¼ cup
Olive oil	5 cl	¼ cup
Whole-fat whipping or single cream	10 cl	3⅓ fl oz, a scant ½ cup
Espelette chilli	1 pinch	1 pinch
Mild curry powder	1 tsp	1 tsp
Powdered cumin	1 tsp	1 tsp
Seaweed stock cube	1	1

Method

Step 1: Poach the fish and marinate it

Dissolve the seaweed stock cube. Let it simmer for 20 minutes, then slip in the ray and cook for another 15 minutes. Lift the fish into a bowl and set it aside. Combine the white wine, chopped shallot, lemon juice, lime zest and grated ginger. Pour this over the fish, turn it through, and leave it to marinate for a few minutes.

Step 2: Reduce, mount with butter, and pot

Tip the fish and its marinade into a sauté pan. Add the cream and simmer until the liquid has evaporated. Take the pan off the heat and add the chilli. Fold in the butter gradually, piece by piece. Spoon the rillettes into pots straight away, seal them, and turn them upside down until they have cooled completely.

Tips from our kitchen

• Cut the butter cold and small. Sixty grams goes in as six or eight cubes, not two lumps. Each piece should melt and disappear before the next goes in. If you rush it, the fat separates and the rillettes turn greasy instead of creamy.
• Off the heat means off the heat. Residual pan heat is enough to melt the butter. If the pan is still hot enough to bubble, slide it onto a cold burner and wait thirty seconds before you start folding.
• The spices have no stated point of entry. Bordier lists mild curry and cumin in the ingredients but the method never says when to add them. We add them with the cream, so they cook briefly in the reducing liquid, and reserve the Espelette for the end as written. That placement is our guidance, not Bordier's.
• Skate goes off quickly. Ray develops an ammonia smell faster than most fish. Buy it the day you cook it, and if it smells sharp at the counter, walk away. Fresh skate smells of nothing much.
• Turning the pots is not decoration. Sealing hot and inverting until cool pulls the butter down over the surface and shrinks the air gap, which is what lets rillettes keep. Use small jars with tight lids, not ramekins.
• Use the lime zest, not its juice. The recipe takes juice from the lemon and zest from the lime. Adding lime juice as well will make the mixture too acidic to hold the butter emulsion.

How to serve it

Cold or barely cool, with toasted country bread and a few cornichons, as the first thing on the table. A dry Muscadet or a chilled Chenin cuts the butter. Keep the portions small: this is rich enough that four people will be happy with a couple of spoonfuls each. Tinned seafood makes a natural companion on the same board, and our La Brújula conservas guide covers what to put next to it.

Where to buy Bordier Lemon-Olive Oil Butter in the US

The French Pantry ships Bordier butter across the United States in insulated overnight packaging, straight from the workshop in Brittany.

• Churned Lemon-Olive Oil Butter by Bordier (4.4 oz): hand-churned butter carrying lemon-infused extra-virgin olive oil, made in 2009 for a chef.

The rest of the range, including the Seaweed butter that would take this recipe further out to sea, is in the Maison Bordier collection.

Frequently asked questions

How much Bordier butter do I need for this recipe?

One block. Bordier blocks are 4.4 oz (125 g) and this takes 60 g (2 oz), so you will have about half left. Two blocks if you are doubling it for a larger table.

Can I use a different Bordier butter?

Seaweed butter is an excellent swap and doubles down on the seaweed stock already in the recipe. Espelette Pepper butter works too, though then cut back the pinch of chilli at the end. Salted butter is the plain fallback, with extra lemon zest to make up the difference.

What if I cannot find skate?

Monkfish or cod cheeks give a similar strandy texture once cooked. Cod fillet will work but flakes rather than shreds, so the rillettes come out smoother. Keep the weight the same at 250 g.

How should I store the butter?

Refrigerate it, wrapped, and use it by the date on the pack. It freezes well tightly wrapped for up to three months.

Does Bordier butter need to be refrigerated?

Yes. Bordier butter is a fresh, hand-churned product and ships cold. Refrigerate it as soon as it arrives, and keep it cold right up until you fold it into the pan.

How long do the rillettes keep?

Sealed in clean jars and refrigerated, three to four days. Once a jar is opened, eat it within a day. Do not leave it out at room temperature.

Related reading

• Bordier Butter: What It Is, Why Chefs Love It, and How to Use It
• La Brújula Spanish Conservas
• Terre Exotique

Recipe and photograph adapted from Maison Bordier, with thanks. The French Pantry is an authorized US retailer of Bordier butter.