page_title: Prawn cocktail
section_title: In Britain
hierarchical_section_title: Prawn cocktail / In Britain
caption_attribution_description: Prawn cocktail
context_page_description: 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.
context_section_description: Nigel Slater says "it is all in the sauce", and that "the true sauce is principally mayonnaise, tomato ketchup and a couple of shakes of Tabasco."
  The chef Heston Blumenthal states that prawn cocktail is his "secret vice": "When I get home late after working in The Fat Duck there's nothing I like better than to raid the fridge for prawn cocktail." Blumenthal notes that it is best to use homemade mayonnaise, and recommends adding chopped basil and tarragon.
  The television chef and writer Delia Smith states that the best version is with self-cooked prawns, and that in the 1960s it was "something simple but really luscious, yet over the years it has suffered from some very poor adaptations, not least watery prawns and inferior sauces."
  According to the chef Jamie Oliver, the prawn cocktail is a "wicked little starter ... guaranteed to please your guests." His recipe includes garlic, cucumber, mint, salad cress and crabmeat, which demonstrates the versatility and adaptability of the basic concept.
  As Hopkinson and Bareham note in The Prawn Cocktail Years, what was once considered to be the "Great British Meal" consisted of Prawn Cocktail, followed by Steak Garni with Chips and Black Forest Gateau for dessert, commenting that "cooked as it should be, this much-derided and often ridiculed dinner is still something very special indeed."
caption: A prawn cocktail
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