Fish

Raja clavata

A tier

Raja clavata is the thornback ray—Europe’s most familiar edible ray, with sweet wing meat and a back studded with buckler thorns. Flavour is clean and slightly shellfish-like; texture is the classic striated wing over soft cartilage. Skin and poach or pan-fry wings; the thorns make whole handling awkward but mark the species on deck. A mainstay of sustainable-leaning European ray fisheries when quotas are respected.