Shrimp Cocktail Party! | Home Movies with Alison Roman

Shrimp cocktail is perfect in every way: perfect snack, perfect party food, perfect perfect perfect. Here, the shrimp are poached in a salty, oniony broth and served with a cocktail sauce that’s acidic, spicy, savory, and probably the only time you’ll see me use ketchup. I love it, you’ll love it, everyone loves it. It’s simply not a party unless there’s shrimp cocktail!

RECIPE & INGREDIENTS:
https://anewsletter.alisoneroman.com/p/shrimp-cocktail-video

VIDEO CHAPTERS:
0:00 Home Movies with Alison Roman
0:18 Overview of Shrimp Cocktail
1:00 Starting with a seasoned court bouillon
2:07 To devein or not to devein
3:38 A special thank you to Lea & Perrins
4:45 Poaching the shrimp
6:23 Making the classic shrimp cocktail sauce
10:43 Peeling and deveining the shrimp
13:58 Serving the shrimp cocktail

#Shrimp #ShrimpCocktail #Seafood

Subscribe to A Newsletter: https://anewsletter.alisoneroman.com/
Find Nothing Fancy online: https://www.alisoneroman.com/nothing-fancy
Find Dining In online: https://www.alisoneroman.com/dining-in

Website: https://www.alisoneroman.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alisoneroman/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/alisoneroman

VIDEO CREDITS:
Director: Daniel Hurwitz
Editor: Warren Chao
Director of Photography: Dennis Thomas
B-Cam: Christiana Lopez
Sound: Yves Albaret

You all know what time it is. Fishtails time.  Okay it’s fishtails time. More specifically,   it’s shrimp time. More specifically,  it’s shrimp cocktail time. Hello, welcome to Home Movies. Today  is shrimp cocktail day, which I  

Could not be more thrilled about. I never thought  I’d see the day where I would get to make shrimp   cocktail on a video for all of you, mostly for me  because I get to eat from cocktail at the end of  

This. It is hands down top five favorite foods.  You may have heard me say that before, I hope   I haven’t said that more than five times. Roll  the tapes. I truly mean it if it is on a menu,  

I’m ordering it. If I’m having a party, I’m  making it. If I’m not at a restaurant and I’m   not having a party, I’m thinking about it. I love  shrimp cocktail. It’s the perfect snack and pretty  

Much the only time I’ll ever use ketchup, so if  you’re a ketchup fan, this one’s for you. Yeah. Let’s make some shrimp cocktail magic. I like to  poach my shrimp in what is properly known as a   court bouillon, which is a seasoned water. I think  court bouillon also traditionally has white wine,  

Which I’m not gonna use and that can have like  celery thyme garlic lemon but it’s something that,   you know you can poach a vegetable or a fish  typically in. And really what we’re doing is   we’re creating a bath for which to poach our  shrimp. I’ve done this recently with just salt  

Water and it’s excellent. You don’t need to go  this extra mile but if you have extra lemons lying   around which I hope you do. Perhaps like you know  a random garlic on its way out and maybe an onion  

That could get used up um celery fennel bulb also  would be really nice in this, but effectively what   I’m doing is, I’m throwing these ingredients into  this pot of simmering water. If you wanted like a   spicy shrimp cocktail, you could throw some chili  flakes in there, some peppercorns would be nice,  

Release the peppercorns. Bay leaf is a pretty  common situation and I’m just gonna let that   boil for like two to five minutes while I do  everything else. So right now I’m going to   talk about something important. I’m going to talk  about the size of the shrimp. To me large shrimp  

Is ideal for shrimp cocktail. This is the perfect  size for dipping and eating maybe in two bites.   Anything smaller looks kind of sad and anything  larger is dare I say too large for this purpose   and that’s my personal preference. You  might find yourself feeling otherwise but  

I think that the large shrimp is like the perfect  size. While that simmers I’m going to talk about   the second most important thing and that is  deveining. People feel really passionately   about this and I get it. There’s a lot of  questions. Do we devein? When do you devein?  

How do you devein? I recently came to terms with  the fact that I would rather not devein. Option a   or I like to devein after they’re cooked.  And the reason being is because I do not like  

Having to peel the raw shrimp and then going in  with the knife touching the raw shrimp and then   when they poach they curl up and they get that  like splayed sort of shrimp texture thing going  

On. I like my shrimp to be whole and intact so  I find the best way to do that is to devein them   after they’re poached. You might disagree with me  and that’s okay. You can do it the other way. You  

Can absolutely devein them now. Roll footage of  me deveining shrimp from shrimp, shrimp scampi,   shrimp scampi. You basically take a sharp  knife and you make a little incision   and you pull it out. Gross right? This episode of Home Movies is brought to you by  Lea & Perrins, the original worcestershire sauce,  

Which to be honest is an absolute dream. You may  know this about me but I am a huge anchovy fan and   guess what Lea & Perrins is made of? Anchovies!  I use it in my shrimp cocktail sauce. I have for  

Years but I also use it as like a way to inject  seasoning and flavor where I don’t necessarily   want saltiness or I don’t want to open up a  ton of anchovies. Seasoning things like beans,   stews, I even put it in salad actually.  It’s a key ingredient in caesar dressing.  

I mean I could literally go on Lea  & Perrins worcestershire sauce is   well a worcestershire is still tough to say even  if you’ve been saying it for years, for years.   Uh my first word was worcestershire sauce  actually yeah it could have been my first  

Word because did you know that Lea & Perrins has  been made using the same formula for 184 years.   I’m not that old. It just rolls off the tongue.  Worcestershire. Obviously I love an accessible   ingredient and luckily you can find Lea &  Perrins in pretty much any grocery store. So  

Pick a bottle up use it to season all of  your most festive holiday dishes this year. These shrimp are going to poach for 90 seconds to  two minutes. And I’m gonna just because this is  

Two pounds, I’m going to dump them all in here.  They do not have to. Did I season this one or   salt no that has no salt in it thank you shout out  Jacobsen Kosher Salt another really great kosher  

Salt that is produced domestically. If you’ll also  notice, this doesn’t, it’s not like full of water.   I’d say this pot is about half full, not half  empty. Instead of shocking them in an ice bath  

Which some people like to do I’m just going to  cool them on a sheet pan. So much like you pull   a you know pasta al dente, I’m  gonna pull the shrimp just as   they’re cooked and you’ll see that they  start to turn pink almost immediately.  

Which is a sign that they’re cooking. They  go from gray to pink. If you were going   for a different vibe, this would be I mean I  guess that’s more like shrimp boil, crab oil,   adding like old bay or something like that. I know  some people that love their shrimp cocktail with  

Old bay. All right, I’m gonna sacrifice  this one shrimp just to kind of test it.   You can see that it’s still pretty uh translucent  in the center which means it isn’t quite cooked   yet. We’ll give it another like 30 seconds. You  don’t want to overcook the shrimp. And also know  

That once this shrimp comes out, because  we’re not putting in an ice bath to stop   the cooking even on the sheet pan while it’ll  cool faster because it’ll be a nice even layer   it’ll continue cooking a little bit off the  heat. So I’m going to let this uh cool down  

A little bit and then I’ll devein  them and we’ll show you that later. And then we’re gonna move on to our cocktail  sauce, which you can’t have shrimp cocktail   without a cocktail sauce. The bulk of your  cocktail sauce is to be made with ketchup.  

I like to use Heinz. It is a classic for a reason  and then as for like baseline seasoning, I like to   use worcestershire sauce which is I think also in  the classic cocktail sauce. I like Lea & Perrins.   It is made with anchovies and vinegar and  it is absolutely delicious. This sauce is  

What’s going to give it like a meaty sort of  complexity rather than just sweet and tangy.   It’s salty. It has like a really intense depth  of flavor. Using it almost like a bouillony   element. So like concentrated salty, anchovy  flavor and then lots and lots of lemon juice.  

I love lemons. I love lemon juice. You’re gonna  squirt lemons on the shrimp itself. You’re gonna   season your cocktail sauce with the lemon juice.  Shrimp and lemons are best of friends. And shrimp   cocktail is I would say the start of that  beautiful friendship. From there you can kind  

Of go in a lot of different directions. You can do  classic with horseradish, either freshly grated or   in a jar which typically is just seasoned  with white distilled vinegar and salt,   which I love. And sort of whatever else I  season it with I always really enjoy adding  

A bit of horseradish because horseradish also  gives your cocktail sauce really nice texture.   And it gives you a sort of gentle heat without  being super spicy. So I like these four things   to kind of start out but from there you can kind  of use any hot sauce that you love. These are just  

A sampling of the ones that I have in my  fridge at all times we have like a you know   vinegar based sort of spicy roasted sauce. We  have Cholula, we have El Yucatan, red yuzu kosho,   we have this beautiful chili paste that comes  from my friend Char from Kurung, which has  

Lasted me longer than I thought it would, it is  fantastic. Queen Majesty scotch bonnet and then   indian lime pickle, which is like also really nice  and viscous and has a lot more flavor than any of   these. And a lot more acidity. Very, very unique  and a delightful accompaniment to shrimp cocktail  

Sauce. Xo I’m gonna start with ketchup, um and  this is sort of just like a scalable cocktail   sauce. I’ll start with about I always make more  than I think I need. I think I still have some  

From two weeks ago in my fridge because I made  way too much but, but imagine, I don’t like it   but imagine running out of cocktail sauce? How  embarrassing. And then I’m gonna add let’s call   it two tablespoons of Lea & Perrins. In terms  of the worcestershire sauce and the lemon  

Juice and any hot sauce you’re using, you can  always add more but you can’t really add less,   so I always recommend starting you  know slow and then going from there.   You also want to be mindful of adding too  much lemon juice or too much worcestershire  

Because you don’t want a super thin cocktail  sauce. Other things you can do to your cocktail   sauce, you can add freshly grated garlic. For  me, you can dip your shrimp in a lot of things.   Stray too far from like the spicy ketchup. It’s  like spicy, tangy, acidic ketchup and it’s not  

Really cocktail sauce anymore, which is fine. It’s  still great but for me like shrimp cocktail is   made with cocktail sauce. Your cocktail sauce  should also be seasoned with salt and pepper.   Let’s call it three to four tablespoons of  horseradish. This is prepared horseradish. Fresh  

Horseradish isn’t actually as spicy as prepared  so if you’re using fresh grated horseradish root,   you can add a little bit more. I’m adding more  worcestershire because it’s reading a little sweet   and maybe a little too acidic and this is going to  kind of help round out those flavors and make it  

A little bit more earthy, a little  bit meatier. I’m going to add this,   which is very spicy but very delicious,  so I only need a little bit here.   This is a Cambodian fermented chili  paste. It’s got chilies and fish sauce and  

Vinegar. I believe maybe actually, she ferments it  maybe with actual anchovies. I think what I mean   I’m noticing that I like my cocktail sauce to have  that like fishiness to it. So if you didn’t have   this particular chili paste, which I’m assuming  you don’t, using things like fish sauce to season  

Your cocktail sauce even further even though this  contains anchovies is probably a really good idea. So the first part of peeling and  deviating the shrimp after the fact is   the peeling and because this is shrimp  cocktail, we’re going to leave the tail on.  

So I like to just take start by peeling the legs  like that and then the little jacket comes off   really easily and it kind of naturally will  separate where the tail is. So you don’t have to  

Work too hard to keep it attached but this task to  me is extremely meditative and I really enjoy it. Again it’s also kind of like a game where I see  how much of the shell I can peel off in one go.  

It feels fun to me. Someone dressed up as  Alison Roman shrimp scampi for Halloween,   which I thought was really sweet. Thank you  whoever you are. I see you. I’m going to devein   the shrimp. Again you do not have to do this, this  is something that if if you are creeped out by the  

Shrimp of it all, of the like veins, the digestive  tract if you will, all you’re going to do this is   like a two-part process if you like this is gonna  be in as involved or not involved as you’d like,   but similarly if they were raw you’re  just going to make that incision there  

And if there’s a piece of something in there you  just scrape it out and then if there’s residual   business in there, the thing that I like to do is,  I like to fill a bowl with some salt water and you  

Just rinse the shrimp off. This is if you have  like particularly squeamish guests but I’ve   never seen a cleaner shrimp in my entire life. All  right we could get someone to help me if we want   to expedite this, please welcome David. I have had  parties where all I’ve served a shrimp cocktail.  

And guess what, those parties absolutely rule.  You don’t tell people to come hungry though.   You say like light snacks. How  many shrimp are we talking about?   I think the most shrimp I’ve ever done for  a party was six pounds of shrimp. And that  

Was one year I did a ham party where it was  like mostly just shrimp cocktail and ham.   For that number of people I had, I should have  probably just gotten pre-cut. Like I don’t think   anybody appreciated how good they were, but the  other night when it was just like 12 people,  

Everyone was like “Damn, this is the best  shrimp cocktail I have ever had.” Like people   genuinely appreciated how delicious and well  seasoned and perfectly cooked the shrimp were.   Like a certain je ne sais quoi. Like you can’t  when you taste these shrimp you’re not like whoa,  

Onion, peppercorn. Like you it’s not you know,  maybe if you’re a super taster you are but   to me it’s like it’s going the distance of  of seasoning your food. David’s washing his   hands in there so it’s a good opportunity to  tell you that the other day, we were at lunch  

And somebody came up to me and  they were like, “Excuse me,   are you Alison Roman? And I was like “Yeah”  and they’re like “Oh we love Home Movies.”   And then they look at David and they’re  like “Actually we recognized you first,  

Are you David?” And I was like, it was, I’ve never  been happier. I thought it was the sweetest most   wonderful thing in the world. So if you see David  on the street, please say hi, he loves to hear it.  

He wants to hear from you. How did David react in  the moment. He felt shy. I think we’re done here. Our shrimp cocktail. We’re poached. We’re  cooled. We’re deveined. We’re ready to eat.   Our cocktail sauce is made. I’m so excited.  I’m gonna get rid of all this gross stuff.  

Alrighty it’s time to eat our shrimp  cocktail. The day has finally come.   I am thrilled. I guess you can  like treat the shrimp cocktail   serving like one of two ways of like putting  your sauce in the middle and like your shrimp  

Around. What can I say? I love a theme plate.  I love a themed shirt. I love themed earrings.   I like making them look like little synchronized  swimmers. Isn’t it cute? $30 worth of shrimp and   some condiments that you probably already have  on hand and if you don’t, you should and I don’t  

Know, this looks impressive as hell. You always  want to provide a little dish for tails. You can   style it however you want. You don’t have to have  a shrimp themed plate but it is cute if you do.  

So good. Like a really good shrimp cocktail, there  is nothing that compares, and I feel like part of   the reason why people were so delighted the other  night when they had it was because I think most  

People expect there to be like the shrimp that  you order from the place and it gives you like   the thing and they’ve been like peeled and shelled  like days before maybe and like a perfectly cooked   shrimp dipped in like your own cocktail sauce is  really special. I think that’s shrimp cocktail.  

I can’t wait to eat this. I’m excited. This to me  could be my whole meal. It might be tonight. Great   for a party. It’s also great for if you don’t  really know what you feel like having for dinner,  

To be like we’re having shrimp cocktails tonight.  It feels silly and fun and I don’t know, it might   boost your spirits. I think that that doing it  for like any occasion is I don’t know it makes  

Me it makes me in a really good mood. To eat it.  To say it. To have it in my life. Shrimp cocktail,   I appreciate you. Thank you for being here. Thank  you to Lea & Perrins for sponsoring this episode.

Jane told me that she saw a young woman wearing a  fishtails bag as a purse around the neighborhood.   Whoever you are, we love you. We think that is  brilliant. We think it’s chic and we want to see  

More of it. So don’t throw those fishtails totes  away. Fill it with stuff. Carry it as a purse.