Today on The Stay At Home Chef
I'm showing you how to make Shrimp Cocktail with Cocktail Sauce.
Sure you can buy pre-made shrimp cocktail and cocktail sauce from the grocery store,
but I tell you what,
nothing beats the flavor of fresh,
and it is so easy to do.
First you'll need some whole, raw shrimp,
and you can see ours still have the legs, tails, and shell on.
Sometimes they're even sold with the head on.
Now the first thing that we need to do is devein our shrimp.
So what you'll want to do is take either some kitchen sheers or a sharp knife,
and run it along the backside to split it open.
You should be able to take a little peek inside,
and you're looking for a black vein.
Not all shrimp have them,
but if they do you simply run your knife in,
the tip of your knife,
and pull that vein right out.
It actually looks like all of our shrimp is already deveined,
so lucky us.
Now we're gonna leave the shells on because they add a lot of flavor.
You could take them off at this point,
but I highly recommend leaving them on.
Then we're gonna get a large saucepan of water heating over high heat to bring it to a boil.
Season the water with 1 tablespoon of salt,
and 1 teaspoon of whole black peppercorns.
Then you're gonna squeeze the juice from 1 lemon,
and toss in the peel.
Now you can always get creative and throw in a sprig of rosemary or other aromatics if you want to add some additional flavor profiles.
While we're waiting for the water to come to a boil,
you'll want to prepare an ice bath for when your shrimp is done cooking.
Just put 2 or 3 cups of ice cubes into a bowl and add in another 2-3 cups of cold water.
Once the water is boiling we can go ahead and add in our shrimp,
and I'm careful with this so I don't splash.
Shrimp cooks super fast.
It really only needs 2-3 minutes in the boiling water.
It's really easy to tell when shrimp is done because it turns pink.
Once the shrimp are done use a slotted spoon to remove them from the water,
and transfer it to your prepared ice bath.
The ice bath stops the cooking process so you don't end up with overcooked rubbery shrimp.
From here the shrimp should be super easy to peel.
First you want to remove the legs,
and that will kind of grab the outer peel,
then the rest of the peel should come right off.
If you want you can also tug on the tail to pull the meat out,
but shrimp cocktail is generally served with the tail on because it makes a nice little handle.
That's it for the shrimp, they're ready to eat as is.
Now shrimp are best served really chilled,
so put them over ice or into the fridge until you are ready to serve.
Next I'm going to show you my quick and easy cocktail sauce.
First up you'll need 1 cup of either ketchup or chili sauce,
if you look at the label for the ingredients you'll find that they're actually really similar products.
Chili sauce just has a little more flavor.
It's literally just a few extra spices.
So you'll need about 1 cup,
then pour in 1/4 cup of lemon juice,
and I'm using freshly squeezed,
then you'll need 1 tablespoon of Worcestershire sauce,
or however you say it,
1 tablespoon of prepared horseradish,
and last just a couple shots of Tobasco sauce,
unless you like it spicy,
and then add in a couple more,
and then simply whisk it altogether.
The good thing about making your own cocktail sauce is that it tastes much more fresh,
it's super easy to make,
and you can control the flavors.
For serving I'm just gonna pour some of our cocktail sauce into a little glass bowl,
or you can use a margarita glass.
What can I say?
Homemade is just almost always better,
and if you noticed this is actually super easy to make,
so no need to pay the extra markup at the grocery store for their shrimp cocktail and cocktail sauce.
You can totally make it at home.
Thanks for watching.
You can find the full written recipe in the video description and on my website.
Be sure to subscribe, like, and follow, and check out the rest of my videos,
where you can find hundreds of restaurant quality recipes,
you can easily make at home.
See you later.