Perfectly-cooked Shrimp Cocktail: Temps and Tips
A shrimp cocktail tray is a standard sight at a holiday party, and it’s no wonder why. Shrimp make great finger food, they’re delicious, and they’re just luxe enough to warrant serving at a special occasion. But good shrimp cocktail depends on good shrimp that are properly cooked, and that can be tricky. Read on for our temperature tips for perfectly cooked shrimp as well as some tips to make them more plump and delicious.
Better shrimp are homemade
You can buy a platter of premade shrimp from your local supermarket, and it’ll be … fine. It will be the same shrimp cocktail that everyone has had at a holiday party since you were a kid. But it would be even better if you cooked the shrimp yourself! Cooking the shrimp yourself gives you control over what kind of shrimp you use, how big they are, how they are seasoned, and how they are cooked.
First things first: poached shrimp temperatures
Undercooked shrimp are … slimy and gross. Overcooked shrimp are rubbery and bouncy. Perfectly cooked shrimp are plump with a little bite that, in some ways, resembles the snap of a good hotdog. To get that doneness just right, we have both a goal and a path. The goal is 140°F (60°C), our perfect doneness for shrimp. Thermapen ONE, with its tiny sensor tip and half-degree accuracy, is perfect for the job. As soon as the shrimp start to turn pink, start checking them in their thickest part to make sure you remove them from heat as soon as they reach your target.
But taking them off the heat isn’t enough; you need to stop them cooking. Have a bowl of ice water ready that you can scoop the shrimp into to arrest the cooking immediately.
Shrimp poaching temp: how hot should the water be?
Ok, so we want to cook them to 140°F (60°C), but how do we get there? That’s the path we alluded to above. The kitchen gurus at SeriousEats suggest a new technique: starting the shrimp in cold liquid and heating them both together.
That may seem … odd, at first. But when we think of the problems faced by shrimp-cookery, it’s almost always overcooking the shrimp by putting them in a cooking environment where they cook too quickly. When we start the shrimp in cold poaching liquid, they cook more evenly, more gently. You can also keep an eye on the water temperature as you cook, using your Thermapen ONE, knowing that there’s no way for the shrimp to be done cooking before the water itself reaches 140°F (60°C). Depending on the size of your shrimp and their original temperature, they’ll probably be done when the water temp is somewhere between 155 and 170°F (68 and 77°C) (use that as a guide, not a definitive answer).
Poaching shrimp for flavor as well as doneness
To raise your shrimp yet another level, you need to flavor them. Shrimp itself is tasty, but it’s also not very strongly flavored. To make it even tastier, start by giving the shrimp a dry-brine of salt and baking soda. The salt does what all dry brines do, denaturing proteins that would lose water during cooking, but it also imparts salty goodness to the shrimp, waking up its flavors. (The baking soda raises the pH and gives the shrimp a snappier bite by changing some other proteins.) 15–30 minutes in the fridge with some salt and soda will make your shrimp that much tastier.
But we’re not done! Rather than simply poaching your shrimp in water, poach them in a flavorful broth. We make a simple veggie broth with celery, bay leaf, shallot, peppercorn, lemon and a little Old Bay. We brought it to a boil, strained it out, then cooled it to start our shrimp in. You can, of course, use the shells from your shrimp to make a shrimp stock, but our shrimp came pre-peeled. You can also save some of the flavorful stock to make your ice bath out of so that you don’t wash the flavor right off the shrimp as soon as they come out of the pot.
Once cooled and drained, toss the shrimp with a little black pepper and some minced fresh parsley, then garnish with flaky salt before serving.
Any party tray of shrimp and spicy, horseradish-y cocktail sauce is going to be ok, but with these critical temperatures and flavor and texture tips, you can make your shrimp cocktail the star of the gathering. Make a flavorful stock, cook the shrimp slowly from cold after a dry brine, and don’t forget to season them. It’s the best shrimp cocktail we’ve ever had, and we hope it is for you and your loved ones, too.
Perfectly-cooked Shrimp Cocktail: Temps and Tips
Equipment
Ingredients
- 2 lb raw shrimp peeled, deveined, thawed if frozen
- 2 tsp kosher salt
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 3 qt water
- 2 cups dry white wine
- several lemons
- 2 stalks celery chopped small
- 2 shallots sliced
- 2 tsp black peppercorns
- 2 bay leaves
- 1 small bunch fresh parsley divided
- 2 tsp Old Bay seasoning or seasoning of your choice
- 1 more Tbsp kosher salt
- Cocktail sauce of your choice
Instructions
- Toss the shrimp with the 2 tsp salt and the baking soda. Put the bowl in the fridge to dry brine for 15–30 minutes.
- Put the water, shrimp shells, if using, chopped celery, shallots, peppercorns, bay leaves, wine, salt for stock, Old Bay, all but 1 large sprig of parsley, and one lemon, squeezed, in a pot. Bring to a boil, simmer briefly, and strain.
- Set 1 qt of the stock aside for the ice bath.
- Chill the main portion of stock until it is below 100°F (38°C). (The stock making can be done a day ahead and the stock chilled overnight.)
- Put the stock back in the pot. Add the shrimp, now brined, to the stock and turn on the heat.
- As the stock heats, stir the shrimp so make sure they don’t cook on the bottom of the pot.
- Make the ice bath with the reserved quart of stock and plenty of ice.
- Check the hot stock temp with your Thermapen ONE from time to time. When the stock passes 140°F (60°C), start to check the shrimp temperature.
- When the shrimp reach 140°F (60°C), remove them from the hot stock directly to the iced stock bath.
- Once the shrimp have cooled, drain them, toss them with the rest of the parsley, minced, and fresh-ground black pepper.
- Plate the shrimp and serve with cocktail sauce!
I have used this method for years and it is the only way to cook shrimp for eating cold. But I don’t a tad differently. First of all I usually just take them from the freezer and put into the cold water in the pot as it seems that when shrimp are not heated to more than 140°F they stay plump and juicy. I also do not raise the temperature of the water to more than 140°-145°F. If the water is kept at about 140°F you can let the shrimp remain in the water until they are cooked and not be too worried about overcooking the shrimp because of high temperature. In a way this is akin to sous vide cooking shrimp.