This Ain't Shrimp Cocktail

I knew that Sauteed Shrimp Cocktail (pg 34) wasn't a traditional ketchup/horseradish shrimp cocktail. I mean, the ingredients of the sauce are yogurt, mayonnaise, mustard, maple syrup, turmeric, and fresh basil leaves. Clearly Giada's scribbling outside of the lines here.

In her intro, all she says is that "the usual shrimp cocktail is served ice-cold and...is pretty flavorless." She prefers it warm. That's fine. I do, too. She says nothing about her cocktail sauce, other than that it's "an interesting combination." No it's not. It's pretty gross. It tasted like diluted mustard, with a sweet aftertaste. Weird. Matt thought it tasted okay, as long as he didn't put too much of it on the shrimp. I ate my shrimp un-dipped.

The shrimp, by itself, was seasoned with herbs de provence (which Giada seems to throw in everything), salt and pepper. Who needs to dunk perfectly good shrimp in a vat of gross mustard sauce?

I'm also shocked that Giada thinks that one pound of jumbo shrimp is enough for 4-6 servings. Matt and I got six shrimp each. So, six people would get two shrimp each. Come on. It's technically in the appetizer section, but it still seems skimpy, especially since twelve shrimp would never use up the amount of sauce the recipe makes.

Conclusion: Disliked. The only thing that saved this dish from being hated is that the shrimp, by itself, was good. The sauce was the dish, though, and the sauce was baaaaad.