Condiment of the Week - Cocktail Sauce

Cocktail sauce, originally known as Marie Rose sauce, is one of several types of cold or room

Two shrimp cocktails with cocktail sauce

temperature sauces often served as part of the dish(es) referred to as seafood cocktail or as a condiment with other seafood. The sauce, and the dish for which it is named, were invented by British cook Fanny Cradock.










Prawn cocktail, the dish where cocktail sauce originates, was originally served with shrimp hanging around the edge of a cocktail glass. This is the origin of the name.




In America 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. Some restaurants use chili sauce, a spicier tomato-based sauce in place of the ketchup.



The common form of cocktail sauce in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Iceland, France, Belgium and The Netherlands, usually consists of mayonnaise mixed with a tomato sauce to the same pink color as prawns, producing a result that could be compared to fry sauce. It is so similar to Thousand Island dressing that it is commonly referred to by that name[dubious – discuss]. 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

A shrimp cocktail served with cocktail sauce

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 (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.