Vietnamese-Style Shrimp Cocktail

This Vietnamese-Style Shrimp Cocktail is so fresh and spicy.

This Vietnamese-style shrimp cocktail is easy to put together, and it's wonderful as an appetizer or first course for a dinner party. I love how it's loaded with fresh vegetables.

As much as I tell myself that I will serve a tried-and-true recipe when we have friends over for dinner to make life easier, I tend to use these get togethers to try something I've never made before. I love browsing through cookbooks looking for ideas, and can't resist trying something new. Fortunately my friends don't mind when I experiment.

I try to look for recipes that can be assembled in advance and then cooked while I am enjoying hanging out with my guests. I can be a pretty clumsy cook, so I try to minimize the hands on time while my guests are here. Plus, it's always nice to have most of the dishwashing done prior to everyone showing up.

For our last dinner for four, I made a parchment wrapped cod dish that you can assemble in advance and refrigerate. There was lots of spinach in the the parchment packets, so I decided to skip the tossed salad and serve these shrimp cocktails. They were a big hit.

This shrimp cocktail mixture can be assembled in advance and refrigerated. In fact, it's required!

One of the ingredients called for in this recipe is fish sauce. It's one of those ingredients, like fermented black beans, that has an unappealing odor on its own, but will add so much to the finished dish. It's made from anchovies, which have a natural umami. I prefer the Red Boat brand fish sauce. It's worth the effort to hunt it down.

If you can't find it, Cook's Illustrated suggests simmering 3 cups of water, 1/4 ounce of dried shiitake mushrooms, 3 tablespoons of salt, and 2 tablespoons of soy sauce until reduced by half to make a vegetarian version.

I also love the Clamato in this recipe. I used the picante version, but you can use "original" Clamato or tomato juice.

P.S. How do you manage when you are having dinner guests? Any secrets? It's alway such a challenge for me.

This month, the Fantastical Food Fight theme is Pickled Peppers. Did you know October was pickled pepper month? Me neither!

I happened to have a jar of pickled jalapeños in the refrigerator. I thought the flavor would work with this recipe because pickled vegetables are often used as condiments on banh mi sandwiches. I was so happy with this shrimp cocktail.

After this recipe, be sure to check out the rest of the recipes using pickled peppers.

Yield: 4 servings