PHOTO / Orange Marmalade Cocktail Sauce

KEY WEST KITCHEN

Three Delicious Sauces for Dressing Up Key West Pink Shrimp

BY KERRY SHELBY

Key West pink shrimp are one of the unique culinary treasures of our island.  These succulent beauties are wild-caught right off our shores and are world renowned for their sweet and tender tail meat.  They take on their pinkish color from the coral sand environment in which they live.  Amazingly, shrimping really didn’t exist in Key West until about 1950, when Key West pinks went from being  thrown away as by-catch to a highly prized commodity soon known as “pink gold.”  The industry today, while smaller than in its heyday, continues to thrive as the global appetite for Key West Pinks remains unquenchable.

As with most fresh, locally-harvested ingredients, Key West pinks don’t need a lot of dressing up.  They are full of flavor unadorned.  However, since we are lucky enough to have them available year-round, we need a little variety in our lives, right?  Here are three simple but delicious sauces to spice up your pink experience.  Since all three sauces actually benefit from being made a couple of days ahead, you can pull these out of the fridge, pop open a cold bottle of Prosecco and serve up a delightful Key West Pink feast in no time at all!

Comeback Sauce

This spicy Southern sauce is great with fried shrimp.  Like cornbread and fried chicken, everyone in the South has their own recipe, but this one has the key ingredients of mayonnaise, chili sauce, garlic and onion.  Feel free to experiment!

Mix together 1 cup mayonnaise, 3 tablespoons lemon juice, 2 minced garlic cloves, 1 tablespoon each of grated onion, vegetable oil, chili sauce and Worcestershire sauce along with 1 teaspoon each of dry mustard, salt and pepper.  Mix well.  You can always use Sriracha for the chili sauce or add Tabasco or hot paprika to kick up the heat a bit if you like.

Orange Marmalade Cocktail Sauce

This sauce’s sweet and hot flavors are a perfect match for the smokiness of shrimp grilled over an open fire.  In Key West, Fausto’s on Fleming has a good orange marmalade called Fausto’s Florida Orange Marmalade that works well here.

Mix together 1 cup of orange marmalade, ¼ cup (at least) of prepared horseradish, some Tabasco, a dash of Worcestershire sauce and 1 teaspoon of chopped fresh rosemary.    Add a squeeze of lime juice just before serving and mix well.

The Updated Classic Cocktail Sauce

Use this sauce with chilled boiled shrimp for an updated shrimp cocktail with a slightly Asian flair.  Serve in a small martini glass or even better in a stylish, saucer-shaped coupe. 

Mix equal parts Sriracha hot chili sauce and Mae Ploy sweet chili sauce from Thailand (about a half cup each for four).  Stir in a dollop of prepared horseradish (I use about another equal part, but I like it spicy) and the juice from half a lemon.  Stir well and adjust ingredients to your taste.  Pour into serving glasses and chill for about half an hour.  Garnish with four chilled shrimp each.

[livemarket market_name="KONK Life LiveMarket" limit=3 category=“” show_signup=0 show_more=0]