Cocktail sauce, also known as seafood sauce, is one of several types of cold or room temperature sauces often served as part of a dish referred to as a seafood cocktail or as a condiment with other seafoods. [1] The sauce, and the dish for which it is named, are often credited to British celebrity chef Fanny Cradock, but seafood cocktails predate her 1967 recipe by some years (for example, Constance Spry published a seafood cocktail using Dublin Bay Prawns in 1956). [2]
Seafood cocktails originated in the 19th century in the United States, usually made with oyster or shrimp. Seafood with spiced, cold sauces was a well-established part of the 20th century culinary repertoire. While cocktail sauce is most associated with the prawn cocktail, it can be served with any shellfish.
In the United States and Canada it generally consists of, at a minimum, ketchup or chili sauce mixed with prepared horseradish. Lemon juice, Worcestershire sauce and Tabasco sauce are common additives, often all three. [3]
The common form of cocktail sauce in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Iceland, France, Belgium, Italy and The Netherlands, usually consists of mayonnaise mixed with a tomato sauce to the same pink colour as prawns, producing a result that could be compared to fry sauce. It is similar to Thousand Island dressing, but the more usual British name is Marie (or Mary) Rose Sauce. The origins of the name are unclear and it is variously credited to a 1980s dive team cook working at the site of the Tudor ship, the Mary Rose, and Fanny Cradock. However, the term first appeared in the 1920s as a term for a garnish of shrimp, and was in use for cocktail sauce by at least 1963. [4] The name was linked to the colour and Escoffier uses it to describe a pink iced pudding. It was so ubiquitous in the 1960s and 1970s that it has since become something of a joke in Britain, along with its most commonly associated dish, the prawn cocktail. [5]
In Belgium, a dash of whisky is often added to the sauce. It is popularly served with steamed shrimp and seafood on the half shell.
In Australia, it is often provided in fish and chip shops.
In most American oyster bars, cocktail sauce is the standard accompaniment for raw oysters and patrons at an oyster bar expect to be able to mix their own. The standard ingredients (in roughly decreasing proportion) are ketchup, horseradish, hot sauce (e.g., Tabasco, Louisiana, or Crystal), Worcestershire sauce, and lemon juice. A soufflé cup is usually set in the middle of the platter of oysters along with a cocktail fork and a lemon slice. Often, the bottles of ketchup and other sauces are grouped together in stations every couple of feet along the counter, but in some oyster bars, patrons are served with their own ingredients.
In cooking, a sauce is a liquid, cream, or semi-solid food, served on or used in preparing other foods. Most sauces are not normally consumed by themselves; they add flavor, texture, and visual appeal to a dish. Sauce is a French word probably from the post-classical Latin salsa, derived from the classical salsus 'salted'. Possibly the oldest recorded European sauce is garum, the fish sauce used by the Ancient Romans, while doubanjiang, the Chinese soy bean paste is mentioned in Rites of Zhou 20.
Ceviche, cebiche, sebiche, or seviche is a dish consisting of fish or shellfish marinated in citrus and seasonings, and is recognized by UNESCO as an expression of Peruvian traditional cuisine and Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. Different versions of ceviche are part of the culinary culture of various Spanish-American countries along the Pacific Ocean where each one is native: Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama and Peru. In Peru it is also considered a flagship dish and cultural heritage.
Russian dressing is a piquant American salad dressing consisting of mayonnaise, ketchup, and other ingredients.
Rémoulade is a cold sauce. Although similar to tartar sauce, it is often more yellowish, sometimes flavored with curry, and often contains chopped pickles or piccalilli. It can also contain horseradish, paprika, anchovies, capers and a host of other items.
A dip or dip sauce is a common condiment for many types of food. Dips are used to add flavor or texture to a food, such as pita bread, dumplings, crackers, chopped raw vegetables, fruits, seafood, cubed pieces of meat and cheese, potato chips, tortilla chips, falafel, and sometimes even whole sandwiches in the case of jus. Unlike other sauces, instead of applying the sauce to the food, the food is typically placed or dipped into the sauce.
Salvadoran cuisine is a style of cooking derived from the nation of El Salvador. The indigenous foods consist of a mix of Amerindian cuisine from groups such as the Lenca, Pipil, Maya Poqomam, Maya Chʼortiʼ, Alaguilac and Cacaopera peoples and some African influences. Many of the dishes are made with maize (corn). There is also heavy use of pork and seafood. European ingredients were incorporated after the Spanish conquest.
A raw bar is a small restaurant or a bar within a restaurant where live shellfish are shucked and served. Raw bars typically offer a variety of raw and cooked seafood and shellfish that is served cold. Seafood-based dishes may also be offered, and additional, non-seafood foods may also be part of the fare. Raw bars may offer alcoholic beverages such as oyster shooters, as well as wine and sake that is paired with various foods. Additional accompaniments may include condiments, sauces and foods such as lemon and lime. Several restaurants in the United States offer raw bars, some of which are seasonal.
Prawn cocktail, also known as shrimp cocktail, is a seafood dish consisting of shelled, cooked prawns in a Marie Rose sauce or cocktail sauce, served in a glass. It was the most popular hors d'œuvre in Great Britain, as well as in the United States, from the 1960s to the late 1980s. According to the English food writer Nigel Slater, the prawn cocktail "has spent most of see-sawing from the height of fashion to the laughably passé" and is now often served with a degree of irony.
Rice vermicelli is a thin form of noodle. It is sometimes referred to as "rice noodles" or "rice sticks", but should not be confused with cellophane noodles, a different Asian type of vermicelli made from mung bean starch or rice starch rather than rice grains themselves.
Salsa golf is a cold sauce of somewhat thick consistency, common in Argentina. It is made from mayonnaise with a smaller amount of tomato-based sauce such as ketchup, as well as seasonings including pimento, oregano, and cumin.
Marie Rose sauce is a British condiment often made from a blend of tomatoes, mayonnaise, Worcestershire sauce, lemon juice and black pepper. A simpler version can be made by merely mixing tomato ketchup with mayonnaise. The sauce was popularised in the 1960s by Fanny Cradock, a British cook.
A Bloody Mary is a cocktail containing vodka, tomato juice, and other spices and flavorings including Worcestershire sauce, hot sauces, garlic, herbs, horseradish, celery, olives, pickled vegetables, salt, black pepper, lemon juice, lime juice and celery salt. Some versions of the drink, such as the "surf 'n turf" Bloody Mary, include shrimp and bacon as garnishes. In the United States, it is usually consumed in the morning or early afternoon, and is popular as a hangover cure.
A plateau de fruits de mer is a seafood dish of raw and cooked shellfish served cold on a platter, usually on a bed of ice.
Clams casino is a clam "on the halfshell" dish with breadcrumbs and bacon. Green peppers are also a common ingredient.
The cuisine of New Orleans encompasses common dishes and foods in New Orleans, Louisiana. It is perhaps the most distinctively recognized regional cuisine in the United States. Some of the dishes originated in New Orleans, while others are common and popular in the city and surrounding areas, such as the Mississippi River Delta and southern Louisiana. The cuisine of New Orleans is heavily influenced by Creole cuisine, Cajun cuisine, and soul food. Later on, due to immigration, Italian cuisine and Sicilian cuisine also has some influence on the cuisine of New Orleans. Seafood also plays a prominent part in the cuisine. Dishes invented in New Orleans include po' boy and muffuletta sandwiches, oysters Rockefeller and oysters Bienville, pompano en papillote, and bananas Foster, among others.
Halabós is a Filipino cooking process consisting of fresh shrimp, crab, or other crustaceans cooked in water and salt. Modern versions of the dish commonly add spices and use carbonated lemon drinks instead of water for a sweeter sauce.