What Sets Mexican Shrimp Cocktail Apart From The American Kind

Shrimp cocktail is a fairly simple appetizer with a surprising and exciting flavor profile. Chilled, poached shrimp are served with and dipped into a ketchup-based cocktail sauce which is rich, thick, and sometimes bursting with pungent, sinus-clearing horseradish along with chili sauce, lemon juice, and Worcestershire sauce. It's all at once sweet, tangy, spicy, and savory and you can find it everywhere from the most casual of parties to the swankiest of steak houses. But if you've ever ordered a Mexican shrimp cocktail, you might have been surprised to see that there were more differences in the dish than similarities to the classic American version.

Whereas classic shrimp cocktail usually comes on a platter with a dish of cocktail sauce on the side (or in the form of individual goblets), Mexican shrimp cocktail is often presented in a tall cup or a bowl. The shrimp is combined with all of the other ingredients and the contents are eaten together, scooped up with a spoon, some crispy saltine crackers (here's how you can season them), or tortilla chips. It's basically a cold soup that could be described as gazpacho-like. The broth is tomato-based, often including ketchup, tomato juice, and lime juice, with plenty of bite-sized chunks of cooked shrimp, cucumber, onion, avocados, and cilantro floating around in it.

More of a light meal than an appetizer, Mexican shrimp cocktail can be spiced up with hot sauce or chili peppers or filled with additional veggies like tomato chunks and celery. It is particularly delicious on warm days because it's served chilled and you won't regret sipping a frosty margarita or a tangy paloma alongside it.

Digging up the origins of Mexican shrimp cocktail has proved to be a difficult task even for experts in the field of Mexican cuisine. The Chicago Tribune reached out to renowned chef and restaurateur, Rick Bayless, who specializes in Mexican food, who could provide no solid sources on the history of the dish. In the 1958 cookbook by Elena Zelayeta called "Elena's Secrets of Mexican Cooking," the author included a recipe for abalone cocktail which combines canned, chopped abalone served in its own juices with lemon or lime juice along with salsa. Similar in name only, Mexican shrimp cocktail better mirrors her recipe for Gazpacho, the classic Spanish chilled soup, although shrimp is not one of the ingredients.

It wouldn't be terribly far-fetched to wonder if Mexican shrimp cocktail may have been created as a nod to the Peruvian seafood specialty, ceviche, the perfect summertime lunch. Although this refreshing dish classically involves curing raw fish or shrimp in citrus juice while the shrimp in Mexican shrimp cocktail is cooked by heat, ceviche is often made with things like onion, cilantro, cucumber, avocado, and tomatoes and is served chilled. However Mexican shrimp cocktail ended up on Mexican restaurant menus, we might never know, but it is a delightfully refreshing, flavorful dish that is worth trying for yourself.