Recipe: Easy Cocktail Sauce

…for steamed shrimp and other seafood of course.

Yes, you can buy cocktail sauce, ready-made, in a jar to keep in your fridge – and have some mediocre sauce for dipping.

Or you can keep some fresh horseradish in your fridge and combine it with two other ingredients that you (likely) already have, ketchup and Worcestershire sauce. Mr. Bill likes to mix his favorite* cocktail sauce up fresh – as needed. Yup, only three ingredients to make great tasting and FRESH cocktail sauce whenever you want.

Here’s what it takes…

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Ingredients:

  1. A good thick red ketchup. Use a well-known name brand – Heinz is great – just don’t use a watery “house brand.” Or you might as well buy that ol’ pre made cocktail sauce in a jar
  2. Worcestershire Sauce – again, use a name brand such as Lee & Perrins. You can keep a small bottle for a long time before it goes bad (probably take 100 years) and you’ll only use a little at a time.
  3. Horseradish. Here’s the tricky part – fresh ground is absolutely the best, like we used to buy from the “Horseradish Lady” at Baltimore’s Cross Street Market on Saturday mornings. In lieu of that you can buy horseradish in a jar – just make sure it the ground pieces and not a puree or white sauce. Cocktail sauce is best with a bit of texture from the horseradish.

Mr. Bill mixes it “to taste,” which is basically a lot of ketchup, about 1/3 that amount of horseradish, and a couple splashes of the Worcestershire sauce. (If you like a bit more “heat” to go with the horseradish, feel free to add a couple splashed of your favorite hot-sauce.)

Here’s a good place to start – use large shot glasses for measuring. They can then be used for dipping.

*Why is this SoBo Bill’s favorite? It’s his recipe, of course. 🙂

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