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There’s a resurgence of the classic shrimp cocktail

• Scott Daniels: We Ate Well and Cheaply
• October 26, 2019
• 1295

Something is appearing on restaurant menus that gives me a little ray of hope for humanity: the old-school shrimp cocktail. It had mostly vanished as an appetizer, tossed aside in favor of chili poppers and potato skins, which have themselves largely gone away outside theme joints and sports bars.

And it’s a welcome return too. There’s something that says “we’re stepping outside the ordinary for a while” about those oversized shrimp hanging from the edge of a glass with a dipping sauce. But because food is always evolving and being reinvented, chefs are updating the presentation. I had a humdinger of a shrimp cocktail recently that arranged them hooked around each other by twos, with two sauces and a range of crackers.

There is some general confusion about terminology here. You may hear both “shrimp” and “prawn” in referring to the crustaceans at hand, and the terms are often used interchangeably. They are not, however, the same animal and belong to separate orders.

Prawns come from freshwater sources, shrimp from saltwater. Prawns can be generally larger, depending on variety, and restaurants sometimes use the word “prawn” on the menu to indicate large size (or to be pretentious), but that isn’t really so.

Prawns are not just big shrimp. Prawns tend to be straighter because their body construction prevents the kind of tight curl shrimp form when cooked. But you can’t distinguish one from the other by taste.

You can tell them apart by appearance, but you have to get pretty up close and intimate with them to do it. They both come in several varieties, each with its own flavor signature, but you can’t separate those flavors out by either shrimp or prawn. In the UK and other countries, “prawn” is the general term for both species.

So you aren’t alone if you find this confusing. It surely bumfuzzles me. In the end, eat what you like.

If this resurgence of the classic shrimp cocktail is your first go-round with it, there are some things to keep in mind if you want to actually be fancy, rather than go the bowl of shrimp and bowl of cocktail sauce route.

You need really big shrimp, which are usually called “colossal.” Shrimp are sized by the approximate number of them it takes to make a pound. At colossal designation you get fewer than 15 to a pound. The dish loses all its magic if the shrimp are dinky. Smaller shrimp go into things like gumbo or étouffée; the monsters are for shrimp cocktail.

The cooking method and timing are critical. They’re raw, then undercooked, then perfect, then rubbery, and this progression takes little more time than typing this sentence. And eating rubbery shrimp, as a friend once marvelously pointed out, is like chewing on a stranger’s finger.

To do the complete classic, boil them in a court bullion. Serve them on the edge of a shallow glass such as a champagne compote with cocktail sauce and a small lemon wedge, whether at room temperature or chilled is up to you.

COURT BULLION

10 cups water

2 carrots, 2 celery stalks, 2 onions, all quartered

1 clove garlic, halved

1 lemon, halved

1 small bunch parsley

4 sprigs fresh thyme

1 or 2 bay leaves.

Add the ingredients to the water, bring to a boil, reduce the heat and simmer for 20 minutes. Discard the solids, return to a gentle boil and add 1 pound shrimp. Cook until they turn pink, about 3 minutes. Drain and allow to cool. Peel and remove the intestine by cutting a slit along the back.