Ah, shrimp: the seafood hater’s seafood of choice!  I’ve mentioned before I live in Kansas, where cattle is king.  I’ve got several friends who turn up their nose at fish, and think nothing of scarfing down fried or grilled shrimp.  I’ll eat just about any presentation of shrimp, but I have a fondness for Alton’s application this time around – shrimp cocktail.  It’s unfortunate that most places don’t do a good shrimp cocktail – and the places that serve it usually don’t do it well.  So  I was pleased to go after this iconic American appetizer.

My first goal was to make the cocktail sauce.  I enjoy a good, strong sauce, and that means cutting the tomato liberally with horseradish.  Alton’s recipe called for a single 14-oz can of diced tomatoes drained of their liquid, a half cup of prepared chili sauce, and a full quarter cup of horseradish.  Even I was a bit taken aback at that.  Given the problems I’d had recently with everything, I decided to cut back on the horseradish when I made the sauce, and would give the sauce a few days for the flavor to develop.  If it needed more, I could always add more before service.  Those three ingredients plus a bit of sugar, salt and black pepper went into a food processor and pureed until smooth.  Into the refrigerator it all went to stew.

Sourcing the shrimp was slightly difficult.  Alton’s recipe required 21-25 count shrimp, and pretty much everywhere I went had either larger or smaller sized shrimp, both frozen and “fresh.”  (I use quotation marks because, really, everything that’s brought out this far from the coast is frozen.  It’s just thawed before it’s presented to us at the counter.)  As luck would have it though, one of my local markets actually had 21-25s; more incredibly, they had them on sale at $4/pound less than normal!

I rushed back to my home, and set to work deveining with a pair of kitchen shears.  It’s a gross process, but then, removing an intestinal track from any creature is bound to be a bit disgusting.  Strangely, some of them didn’t have veins.  I’m hoping that meant that they were removed from the shrimp before I got to them, and not that I missed them.  Not that it matters, really, the veins are safe to eat, just a bit gritty and gross.

After deveining came a quick 25 minute brine in a salt/sugar solution.  They were the patted as dry as possible, then tossed with olive oil and a bit of Old Bay.  Under the broiler they went for a mere two minutes, flipped, and returned for another minute.  After three minutes beneath the heat, they were thrown back into a bowl, and put into the freezer to stop the cooking.  Fifteen minutes later, they were just cool enough to handle and eat.

So, how were they?  I enjoyed them.  And the sauce?  Turned out it needed a bit more horseradish before everyone enjoyed it.  How did everyone like them?  Well, one of my guests is a recent ex-Bostonian.  If anyone knows seafood, it’s her.  When she couldn’t stop eating them, I knew Alton & I had done well.

Next Time: A fungus is among us.

Shrimp Cocktail