Not on my jar, I’ve had it a long time though.
2 Likes
Maybe the wasabi powder got too expensive? Like I said, I’ve had my jar a long time.
The Crosse & Blackwell Shrimp sauce was absolutely the best shrimp sauce that I ever tasted.
It was hard to find here (Central Indiana), so I was buying it online by the case for my family until it wasn’t available.
I’ve tried to recreate the flavor, but to no avail.
I think Crosse & Blackwell used Worchestershire Sauce as one of their ingredients, and as you know, traditional Worcestershire sauce contains anchovies.
I’ve added premium fish sauce (anchovy) to other premium brands of cocktail sauces, but I couldn’t get the flavor right.
If anyone can recreate this great sauce, I will be a customer for life!
1 Like
My thought on this is that chili sauce, not ketchup, is key here (as some of the above recipes specify). It provides a textural and flavor element that ketchup does not.
1 Like
Maybe it’s the tamarind extract that gives it the Cross & Blackwell seafood cocktail sauce flavor? It’s low on the ingredient list, but maybe the sweet-sour adds just a hint of something else?
2 Likes
I finally got around to testing the copycat Crosse & Blackwell sauce, posted by Jeff Frey - recipe here. VERY close flavor to the original in a side-by-side taste test. Mine did not have quite the same texture - missing the tiny bits of what might be very finely minced/pickled onion in the original. I used cream-style prepared horseradish which also might be the factor for texture.
My husband is lobbying for a round of commercial sauce taste testing. I think it’s just so he’ll know what to buy when I’m no longer cooking (… in 15 years or so…). Some of the food R&D budget might be “invested” in taste-trials.
2 Likes
The tamarind extract in the C&B ingredients list is within parenthesis so it’s actually inside the details of Worchestershire Sauce ingredients.
2 Likes
When I make my own cocktail sauce I always use the grated prepped horseradish from the cold sauce. I think those are the “bits” you’re looking for.
2 Likes
Haven’t tasted C&B in decades (probably 80s); don’t remember what I didn’t like for certain but probably not spicy enough. Settled on Heinz Seafood Cocktail Sauce. Always have extra horseradish on hand. The seafood bars I go to have that on the side also as most people probably prefer more than the base amt!
Re: Frey’s offering: I think you need to start with tomatoes or tomato paste or the two together, not ketchup.
No cooking down? I doubt C&B goes into the bottles without some simmering.
Might consider brown sugar.
Might consider malt vinegar.
Make small batches for testing and have less to throw away 
if it’s not good instead of a bunch of bottles you’ve paid for, but I like your husband’s idea - there’s probably some around worth trying that weren’t available before, including, I imagine, TJ’s (haven’t ever looked for it or tried it).
1 Like
They do and its pretty good. I prefer to make my own but keep a bottle of the Trader Joes stuff on hand for when I’m feeling lazy.
3 Likes
This, plus a bunch of lemon juice.
1 Like
Which you can alternatively squeeze on the oysters, which I was taught to do at the raw bar by my grandfather when I was maybe 3 years old. Then plunk into the sauce. I had no idea what I was eating, but it was playing-with-your-food fun.
1 Like
Thanks for the ideas of 2 commercial sauces to taste test - Heinz Seafood Cocktail sauce and TJ’s.
As noted in my “review” Frey’s recipe comes very, very close for flavor match of C&B and if I use the prepared grated horseradish next round instead of cream-style, it should have the right texture, too. The ketchup is pre-simmered - tomato concentrate (e.g., paste), distilled vinegar, sugar, water, onion. The W. sauce has molasses as an ingredient so the “brown sugar” element is incorporated. Malt vinegar is not in C&B ingredients list but could add a nice dimension to seafood sauce.
2 Likes
The recipe notes from Frey says he decided, after comparing ingredients labels, that NOT having lemon in the ingredients was what he preferred in sauces he’d tasted. With C&B winning as his favorite. So to replicate that flavor profile, leaving out lemon seems right.
I’ll try a alternative sauce with lemon, just to re-check our preferences.
1 Like
Oh yes they have! Extracts, powders, ‘essence of’ are listed on so many ingredient lists now. The last jar of pickle chips I bought listed, “dill extract, garlic extract, tumeric extract”. Yikes. Guess I have to make my own from now on.
How are you faring there in PP? Be safe!
Cold and snowy for days! Luckily, inches and not feet… at least until the lazy snow plow comes thru and piles it up across the end of my driveway. 
Thanks.
3 Likes
Like I always say, “Some days you’re the bug, others the windshield.”
I know what you mean, in regards to the plow making your exit out of your driveway impassable. Hang in there!
Taste test at lunch time today. Purchase of alternatives funded by the R&D portion of the food budget.
Trader Joe’s Seafood Cocktail Sauce - $2.29
Legal Sea Food House Cocktail Sauce, by Stonewall Kitchens - $6.99
Heinz Original Seafood Cocktail Sauce - $3.99
Dab of Crosse & Blackwell - for comparison
Copycat C&B homemade - for comparison
I warmed some thawed Costco cook tail-off shrimp in butter, and we dipped those one at a time in the sauce. Side dishes/palate cleansers were fresh spinach, a potato/pesto/biscuit-batter egg bake and water.
Clear winners - the Heinz Original Seafood Cocktail Sauce and the Legal Seafood sauce.
Clear losers - My homemade copycat from 3 days ago. Disappointingly, it did not “age” at all well in the fridge. I’d make only enough for one meal if I were to attempt that again. And the Trader Joe’s was rejected after one shrimp each – very thin texture and tasted like taco sauce to us - may have been just
bad batch? TJ’s did honor their refund/return policy. I would not have bothered for the small price, but was driving by for other errands and wanted to provide comment/feedback.
5 Likes
