Shrimp Cocktail Recipe

While this shrimp cocktail recipe doesn’t constitute a full meal, it’s a great appetizer additions for cocktail parties, wine tasting parties, or light lunch fares.

Featuring dry sparkling wine, brandy, fresh herbs, onions, and extra virgin olive oil, this is a appetizer dish that'll be popular with guests. 

You have the option of making this dish lighter - cooked only with the olive oil - or richer in flavor by adding in optional butter in the end. 

Shrimp has a delicious texture that can soak up many sauces and flavors - including wine. 

It's an incredibly versatile seafood option and is a staple amongst cocktail parties. 

Shrimp Cocktail Recipe: Ingredients List

The ingredients that we are going to need for six persons, are the following:

• three pounds of large shrimp (with shells, if possible)
• six to seven tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil (or high quality fresh butter) 
• one cup of thinly chopped onions 
• five large, firm but ripened tomatoes
• two large glasses of white wine (in our case, we recommend our delicious Spumante Secco)
• salt and pepper, as needed or desired
• two teaspoons of finely chopped parsley
• one small glass of brandy 
• one to two tablespoons of high quality fresh butter (optional addition at the end)

Shrimp Cocktail Recipe: Cooking Steps

We start our recipe by thoroughly washing the large shrimp.

In a big pot we add a little bit of water and a little bit of salt, we put it on a medium flame, and we add the shrimp to softly start boiling.

Then we cover the pot.

However, we don’t yet allow the shrimp to completely cook - they must be removed from the pot while still fairly hard, using a large-holed spoon, and placed in a separate bowl to cool down.

The broth however, we keep it the pot. 

Meanwhile in a new pot, we add the extra virgin olive oil or the fresh butter or even both, and we saute the chopped onions. 

We add the tomatoes that we have already peeled and cut into slices and removed all the seeds. We stir for several minutes.

After that we add the wine, salt, pepper, as needed, the chopped parsley, and two to three cups of the broth that we kept from when boiling the shrimp.

We leave it to boil. 

After just eight to ten minutes of boiling, we add the shrimp that are already medium-cooked, and we leave them to cook with sauce, while we raise the flame to a high setting, to thicken the sauce for approximately ten more minutes, or when we deem that the sauce is thick enough to our liking.

When we think its ready, we turn off the flame, and we add in the pot the brandy. And if we like, we add one or two tablespoons of high quality fresh butter. 

We serve the shrimp as they are hot by sprinkling the thinly chopped parsley on top, and fresh pepper. 

Please note: If we make the dish only with extra virgin olive oil, we can even serve it room temperature. If butter was used, its highly preferable to be served hot. 

A glass of delicious Spumante Secco or sweetly spicy Vidal Blanc will work wonderfully here. 

Hungry for more wine recipes? I highly recommend this book: The Wine Lover's Cookbook!  (Book review on its way!) Available via Amazon!

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