Evolution

The Cocktail Sauce Mystery

When I was a kid, my mother occasionally prepared shrimp for dinner. Shrimp, in those days were tiny, rubbery critters that came breaded and frozen in little waxed cardboard boxes. They had to be deep-fried and eaten with cocktail sauce. Since the oil was already hot, we usually had french fries to go with the shrimp. The fries came frozen in a bag, tasted like dryer lint, and apparently were chemically treated to neutralize salt.

My brother and I would go to the kitchen to investigate the sizzle and occasional pop. Mom would see us and, "We're having shrimp for dinner!" with the kind of enthusiasm she usually reserved for announcing apple pie! and ice cream! Despite all of Mom's exclamation points, I just couldn't see why anyone should get excited over greasy cornmeal with a kernel of shrimp-flavored gristle in the center. When I was eight years old, though, it did pass for palatable if I peeled off most of the breading and drowned the little shrimplets in cocktail sauce.

I remember, also, my perplexity at the name cocktail sauce. For me the name conjured images of men in dinner jackets and ladies in sparkling LBDs sipping martini glasses of red goo. Silly. This sauce was clearly too thick to drink, and that much horseradish in a single gulp would have been pretty hard on the sinuses.

I finally learned the solution to the Cocktail Sauce Mystery during a family outing. We were celebrating some forgotten family event at a local steak house. This was in the days before coloring-book-kiddie-menus, so to my little brother, restaurant dining was only a treat if the restaurant in question served cheeseburgers and ice cream. I, on the other hand, have loved dining at fine restaurants as long as I can remember. For a skinny little kid, I was a big eater and fascinated with the variety of foods. I'd been ordering from the adult menu from the time I was six years old, and there was still so much left to try.

This particular trip to the steak house lives in my memory because, when the server took our drink orders, my father ordered a scotch and an appetizer: a shrimp cocktail. Before the dish arrived, I was intrigued. He ordered it with scotch. Did that mean it really was used in a drink? Was my father about to sip some bizarre concoction of cocktail sauce, puréed shrimp, and scotch?

Today, of course, I realize how mundane an appetizer the shrimp cocktail is, but at the time it fascinated me: a chilled parfait glass half-filled with cocktail sauce, its lip supporting a ring of big-shouldered shrimp. At least, they looked like shrimp. These were each as large as Dad's middle finger—a lot bigger than the ones that came out of the grocery store freezer cases. After watching in fascination as he devoured shrimp after shrimp, I finally worked up the nerve to ask for a bite. With two shrimp still hanging from the glass, Dad smiled and pushed the dish over to me, "Go to town."

The shrimp were ice cold, cold enough that it was obviously intentional. I was stunned. Sure, the condensation on the glass should have been a clue, but I didn't expect cold shrimp. I thought shrimp had to be cooked. Had this been cooked? I'd never seen raw shrimp, so it certainly seemed possible. I may have asked. I don't recall. I do recall the crisp meatiness of the shrimp. They were so good—the coefficient of shrimpiness so high—that I completely forgot to try it with the sauce. In one bite, shrimp had evolved in my world from barely edible rubbery little worm-things to a bold, flavorful treat. In ensuing years, every time we went to a restaurant, I scanned the menu for shrimp cocktail. I was surprised at the variations. Cocktail sauces sometimes contained chili, onions, scallions, lettuce, garlic, or honey. The shrimp might be twice as big as the ones I'd first seen or not much bigger than kidney beans.

Over the next few years, I also began looking through menus for shrimp anything and anything shrimp. They were everywhere: broiled, fried, sautéed, poached, barbecued. I discovered garlicky scampis, crispy-fringed grilled shrimp, fiery shrimp gumbo, sparkling citrusy ceviche, politely savory shrimp newburg, and assertive shrimp bisque. With that one order, my father had forced the evolution of shrimp in my world.

Otherworldly Shrimp


Traveling on the U.S. Navy's dime, I had opportunities to sample foods in Japan, Thailand, Korea, Australia, and the Philippines. In Thailand, as in the Philippines, the majority of my shipmates were more interested in the available sexual entertainments than in the local cuisine, but a few of us spent a good chunk of our personal funds on trips to sundry restaurants.

Two things I learned right away about Thai food: they like it hot and they like it sweet. A lot has been made in recent years about the purported Thai balance of salty, sour, sweet, and hot, but trust me, for every ounce of salty and sour, you get three of sweet and hot. I guess that shouldn't come as a surprise. Sweet and hot elements are addictive.

In support of that love of sweet and hot, you usually find on the tables in the restaurants in Sriracha a bottle or bowl of red sauce made of puréed sun-ripened chilis, garlic, sugar, vinegar, and salt. The Thai brands are all hot, all sweet, and all just a bit different from one another. Most brands come in two strengths: medium (hot) and strong (liable to raise blisters). I watched the locals use the sauce on all manner of seafoods: crabs, clams, and shrimp.

Back in the states, I noticed that we have only one brand of Sriracha sauce. You see it more frequently in Vietnamese than Thai restaurants—probably because Thai diners consider the Huy Fong stuff too mild.

This dish is not authentically Thai. My green mango salad lacks three elements I saw in every green mango salad I had in Thailand: peanuts, fish sauce, and dried shrimp. I left those items out because I think the dish matches better with the shrimp this way.

Broiled Sriracha Shrimp with Sesame Vermicelli Cakes and Green Mango Salad

(serves four)

shrimp
one and a half pounds shrimp (20 per pound or larger)
one half cup peanut oil
two tablespoons seasoned rice wine vinegar
three tablespoons Sriracha
two tablespoons dark soy sauce
three tablespoons honey

cakes
one pound cooked egg vermicelli
two tablespoons peanut oil

noodle sauce
one quarter cup sesame oil
two tablespoons cashew butter*
one tablespoon Sriracha

salad
one green mango, peeled and shredded
one jalapeño chili, seeded and thinly sliced
one half cup seasoned rice wine vinegar
one half cup water
one half cup thinly sliced romaine
one scallion
one teaspoon sesame oil

*cashew butter
one pound roasted and unsalted cashews
one quarter cup peanut oil
one tablespoon granulated sugar
one teaspoon salt

quality of ingredients

Shrimp has to be fresh, but most grocers really don't give customers an opportunity to verify the freshness of the shrimp. To do that, you have to touch it. You have to verify that the legs are intact, the shells aren't paper-thin, and the flesh isn't mushy. So you go into the store and ask for a pound and a half of shrimp, and the fishmonger slips on a plastic glove and scoops up a handful of shrimp and stuffs them in a bag. Usually, if you tell them you don't want any soft ones or any with papery shells, they'll oblige you. Otherwise, you'll likely be throwing away shrimp when you get home.

I'm probably being lazy with the rice wine vinegar. I like the quantity of sugar and salt in the Marukan seasoned rice wine vinegar (I use it in my sushi rice, too), so why bother calculating sugar and salt for myself?

Huy Fong sells the only Sriracha sauce in the U.S. It's the brand with a rooster on the bottle.

I like a thick, dark soy sauce for this marinade. If I were really trying to be authentically Thai, I'd have used nam pla instead.

I always buy local honey. Don't misunderstand: I think homeopathy is a load of road apples. Local honey is less processed than the Big Brand slop, so it tastes better.

I'm a big fan of fresh pasta, and I'll have to try frying some home-made vermicelli, sometime. For this dish, I used a dry egg vermicelli, and it worked brilliantly.

I suppose I could buy cashew butter, but it's pretty easy to make. I also find that most cashew butters sold in grocery stores (usually sold in the bulk foods) is a bit too oily. If you own a food processor, make your own. It only takes five minutes.

Green mango is a reference to the ripeness, not the actual color of the skin. Red, green, yellow will all work. For this salad, you want a mango that's as solid as oak.

For the pickled chili, use one large jalapeño. You could easily substitute a large Fresno or a red or green fingerhot. If you like your chilis really hot, the pickled jalapeño will disappoint you. For more heat, substitute three serranos. For a lot more heat, substitute four Thai bird chilis.

The romaine lettuce is a trick I learned from a local Thai restaurant. In Thailand they use sprouts or cucumbers (I actually prefer cucumbers, but the girls don't care for them).

preparation notes

The following instructions are written in the order in which I last prepared these dishes. You can simplify this process slightly by making the cashew butter and pickling the chili in advance. Here's a quick outline of the steps to follow:

Marinate the shrimp
Boil the noodles
Pickle the chili
Prepare the cashew butter
Blend the noodle sauce
Preheat the broiler
Toss the salad
Fry the noodles
Broil the shrimp
Dress the salad
Plate the meal

Mix the peanut oil, seasoned rice wine vinegar, Sriracha, dark soy sauce, and honey and whisk them until smooth. Stir in the shrimp and let them marinate for one hour. With a large spoon, turn the shrimp over every ten minutes or so to ensure the best possible coverage of the shrimp. That hour gives you plenty of time to boil the noodles and pickle the chili for the salad.

Boil the noodles to just barely al dente (about three minutes for dry vermicelli, two minutes for fresh). Rinse the noodles with cold water (you don't want them to cook any further) and drain them thoroughly.

Half-fill a large bowl (large enough to hold a small sauce pan) with ice and add a cup or so of cold water. In a small sauce pan, mix the half cup of vinegar and half cup of water and bring the liquid to a boil. Drop the sliced chili into the boiling liquid and immediately remove it from the flame. Cool the sauce pan in the bowl of ice.

If you're making your own cashew butter, in a food processor, process the cashews, peanut oil, sugar, and salt until smooth (about three to five minutes).

In a blender, combine a quarter cup sesame oil, two tablespoons cashew butter, and one tablespoon of the Sriracha and blend the ingredients until smooth. This is for the noodle sauce.

Preheat your broiler to 500F.

Remove the chili slices from the pickling liquid with a fork or slotted spoon, and reserve a quarter cup of the pickling liquid. In a non-reactive bowl, toss the mango, lettuce, scallions, and chili slices.

In a skillet (I've done this in both a cast iron skillet and a non-stick skillet—both work just fine) over a medium flame, heat one tablespoon of peanut oil to smoking. Pour the cooked noodles into the hot oil, forming them into a disc. I found this easiest to do with my fingers: take a handful of noodles at a time and scatter them evenly in a circular swirl. The disc of noodles should be roughly three-quarters of an inch thick. Press them down slightly with a spatula and allow them to fry, undisturbed, until golden-brown and crisp on one side (about six minutes). Flip the noodles by placing a plate over the cake and turning the skillet over. Return the skillet to the flame, pour in a second tablespoon of peanut oil, and slide the noodle cake back into the skillet. Fry the noodles, undisturbed, for an additional five minutes or until golden-brown.

Skewer the shrimp and broil them for two minutes on each side.

Dress the mango salad with the reserved chili pickling liquid and a sprinkling of sesame oil. Toss the salad once more before plating.


To plate this dish: slice the noodle cake. I fried my noodles in a small skillet, this time, and half a cake was about right for a single serving. If you use a larger skillet, you might want to slice the cake, pizza-style, into fourths or sixths. Drizzle a few stripes of the noodle sauce over each serving of fried noodle. A squeeze-type ketchup bottle works well for this. Using a fork, slide the shrimp off the skewers and onto the noodle cakes. Add a scoop of mango salad on the side.