Shrimp Cocktail

This common and popular appetizer and party dish is easy to make. When I was a kid and teenager, there was a commercially made shrimp cocktail sold in supermarkets. I can't remember the company name, but it came in four individual servings (at least, I think there were four), and each serving was right in its own cocktail glass with the horseradish flavored sauce and several small shrimp arranged around the rim of the glass. Of course, once the shrimp was eaten, you could wash the glass and keep it for your own purposes, which was a common marketing pitch back then, especially for products like jelly, jam and peanut butter.  

 

I tend to use the 31 to 35 size shrimp (that simply means there are between 31 and 35 shrimp per pound), but you can use any shrimp you like. When I bought the shrimp for this article, I chose a few types and sizes (see pictures, below). It's naturally a lot easier if you buy shrimp that are peeled and deveined, but with the tails on, as that gives you a great way to hold the shrimp for dipping into the sauce. You can also buy 'peel-n-eat' shrimp, which have had the shells cut to devein them, and the cuts in the shell make them easy to peel. Shrimp are relatively mild in flavor, but professional chefs and cooks tells us that by cooking shrimp in their shells, it gives them more taste, and indeed, shrimp shells are used by professional cooks in recipes for seafood stock. I once was at a fancy restaurant where I had a few shrimp shells from my dinner, and I tried to sell them back to the restaurant, but they wouldn't take them. Hmm, I wonder what that was about? Some days, you can't make a nickel.  

 

Ingredients (about 4 to 5 servings):

 

1 to 1 1/4 pound shrimp

4 cups water

1 tablespoon salt

1/2 lemon

1/4 cup chopped onion 

2 bay leaves

2 teaspoons sugar 

Add 4 cups of water to a large sauce pan, then add the salt, half lemon, chopped onion, bay leaves and sugar. Bring to a boil then reduce heat to maintain a steady simmer for about 3 minutes. Now add the shrimp and turn off the heat. Let the shrimp sit in the hot water for about 3 to 3 1/2 minutes, until they are nice and pink in color (you don't want to leave them in the water too long, they will get rubbery, and you don't want to drop one, but it bounces back into the dish!). Drain the shrimp and put them under cold running water for a minute or two. Add some ice cubes to the water and let the shrimp sit in the ice water as you put together the sauce. Before serving, drain the shrimp and lay them out on a plate covered with some paper towels or napkins to soak up any water. 

For the cocktail sauce:

3/4 cup thick ketchup*

2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

1 tablespoon horseradish

1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce

1/2 to 1 teaspoon your favorite hot sauce (or 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper)

 

In a bowl, mix the ingredients together well. Serve along with the shrimp.

 

* When I'm feeling bold and I want to be a glutton for punishment, I use 1/2 cup regular thick ketchup and 1/4 cup "Cleveland Ketchup/Ghost Pepper Ketchup," as well as some Portuguese piri piri hot sauce, along with the other ingredients. If you do not like heat, please don't do this. If you don't like much spicy heat to your foods, you can cut the horseradish to 1/2 tablespoon and just use a couple of dashes of hot sauce, or even just use a sprinkle of ground red pepper (like cayenne pepper) in the cocktail sauce. If you live outside of the Cleveland area, here is the link to the Cleveland Ketchup site: https://www.clevelandketchup.com/?utm_source=gmb&utm_medium=referral    

 

 I had some Danish rye bread, but saltine crackers are common with shrimp cocktail ...

 

WORD HISTORY:

Dry-This word, commonly used as an adjective and as a verb, traces back to Indo European "druegh," which seems to have had the notion of "hardening, strengthened by hardening." This gave its Old Germanic offspring "draugiz," which more specifically added the idea of "dry, drying" to the "hardening, strengthening by hardening" notion, the connection to which is easily seen. This gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "dryge," which meant "dry." This also produced the verb "drygan," meaning "to dry." These later became "drye," although the "g" persisted in some dialects for quite some time, before everything settled on the modern 'g-less' version. The other Germanic languages have: German "trocken," Low German "dröög," Dutch "droog," North Frisian "driig" West Frisian "droech," Danish has "drøj" (meaning "tough," and the connection to "dry" is obvious), Swedish "dryg" (hard, enduring), Icelandic "draugur" (a noun, "dry tree trunk," but this is apparently antiquated). I could not find a form in Norwegian, but that doesn't mean there isn't one, as the North Germanic languages have tended to retain the general meaning "hard," and from that notion also came "lasting, ample, sufficient in quantity," from the idea that things like dried meats and dried fruits "last," thus also giving "ample" quantities.