Save The Bay - Eat A Ray and Ask Chef Dennis

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Last week at Wegman's as I looked over my seafood options, I saw a new item in the case, Chesapeake Bay Ray.  It had  a rich red color, and looked a little like a tuna steak, but best of all it was only $7.99 a pound.    I watched as another customer purchased a nice piece of the Ray, and asked her if she had ever had it before, she replied no......the draw was the price.  With the ever increasing prices of seafood, it was an unheard of steal! 

Not really being sure I quizzed the staff, how can I cook it?  Broil, bake, pan fry, or grill they told me, okay lots of options but it really didn't tell me what I wanted to know.   What's it taste like?  No one knew for sure, the Ray had just arrived and no one had taken any home yet to try, but they offered what little they knew.  It taste's like veal, now I just couldn't accept that a logical explanation for the flavor, how could seafood taste like veal!  Then the staff proceeded to tell me that the Ray was destroying the balance of the Chesapeake Bay, eating everything in its path, lobster, clams, crabs, and also disrupting the oyster beds, and the slogan was "Save The Bay, Eat A Ray".  

Ok, they had me with that slogan.   I love my Chesapeake bay  clams, and crabmeat, and if this almost prehistoric creature was disrupting the delicate balance of the Chesapeake Bay it was my duty to help!

While the Chesapeake Bay is still a hundred or so miles away, it terms of Local, it still falls into that category, and I do try to eat local foods when ever possible.  So I purchased two good sized pieces and was on my way home.

Once I got home I started to do a little research and found that the Chesapeake Bay Ray, aka as the Cownose Ray, was indeed damaging the balance of the bay.  Opinions on the Ray went both ways, it was delicious, or it was terrible, but nothing conclusive either way. I found recipes that included blackening, marinating, and one for a Marsala sauce......I thought, who in their right mind would put a Marsala sauce on fish?  But I also found more people saying it tasted like veal.....Now I was really confused.....sigh

So when in doubt I fall back on my traditional preparation methods, of Olive Oil, salt and pepper.  It is grilling season and I thought that grilling would be the best way to cook the Ray.

What I found was that the shape of the steak made it difficult to cook properly, it started off as a nice thick piece a little more than an inch thick and narrowed down to about a half an inch. so I ended up finishing the Ray in the oven to make sure it was fully cooked.  I may have overcooked it slightly, when I first opened it up it was still a little rare in the center which may have been the best way to serve it, but I knew there was no way my wife would touch it if it wasn't fully cooked.  Cooking it long enough for the thickest part to be done, really overcooked the one end.  My suggestion would be to cut down the pieces and cook the thinner parts separately.