One Creamy British-Style Sauce Instantly Elevates Fish Sandwiches
When it comes to the formula for a fish sandwich, menus don't vary much. A fried piece of fish is served on a bun, possibly with a few vegetables, and almost always topped with a dollop of creamy tartar sauce — as well as maybe a lemon wedge on the side for extra acidity. It's hard to argue with the combination; fried fish loves a creamy, tangy accompaniment, but there is more than one sauce that can fill this role. For an intriguingly elegant fish sandwich, try swapping that tartar for a nice Marie Rose sauce.
Marie Rose sauce hails from the U.K., where celebrity chef Fanny Cradock popularized it in the 1960s as a Bpritish shrimp cocktail sauce. The origins of the sauce itself are a bit murky, as is the exact recipe, but at its core, it always begins with a simple combination of mayonnaise and ketchup. These two ingredients give the sauce its signature pink hue, and from there it is enhanced with a variety of different ingredients — depending on who's in the kitchen at the moment — with some of the most common being familiar seafood-ready flavors like lemon juice, Worcestershire sauce, and hot pepper sauce.
Because of its creaminess, Marie Rose sauce is a perfect replacement for tartar sauce with just about all fish sandwich recipes. The texture stays the same, and the flavor of the sauce provides a similarly sweet and tangy balance to complement the salty, fried fish. And because Marie Rose sauce comes from somewhat unknown origins, it also has plenty of room for personalization.
Marie Rose sauce is your new favorite customizable seafood complement
The base of mayonnaise and tomato base is non-negotiable in Marie Rose sauce, but just about everything after that is up to the cook. In addition to the previously mentioned extras, some folks like to amp up recipes with things like a splash of whiskey or brandy, cloves of roasted garlic, and spices like smoked paprika and white, black, or cayenne pepper. Fresh herbs, too, can be a welcome addition, providing aromatic depth to the delicate sauce. In some cases, cooks may even bring it one step closer to American-style cocktail sauce by adding sharp horseradish to the mix, mirroring another intriguing tartar sauce condiment swap for fish sandwiches.
Once this sauce becomes a part of your culinary repertoire, it will quickly expand from the realm of fish sandwiches to cover all manner of different seafood courses. It was, of course, first popularized as a British cocktail sauce alternative, so it makes perfect sense to pair it with chilled shrimp, but it is also just generally one of the best sauces to pair with seafood. Creamy, sweet, and tangy, it is also more kid-friendly than some of the alternatives with ingredients like pungent horseradish.
As for an actual recipe that you can follow at home — with measurements and whatnot — basic Marie Rose sauce is quite simple. It is simple enough, in fact, that the whole thing fits easily into a social-media-ready short-form video, as you can see in this TikTok from Chef Diego Solís. After that, all creative additions are squarely in your hands.
@chefdiegosolis_ Day 6 back to basic SERIES Marie Rose Sauce #newchefs #chefsoftiktok #chefskills #sharingknowledge