Cucumber Potted Shrimp

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Potted shrimp is a classic Britsh recipe. It traditionally requires tiny brown shrimp cooked in clarified butter and flavoured with nutmeg. This mixture is then set in the fridge and, when served, cold the shrimp are spread on toasted bread.

I’ve made a variation on this British classic with this cucumber potted shrimp recipe.

“So why vary the classic?” I hear you ask. Well, for a number of reasons actually. Firstly, economic. I used standard shrimp instead of brown shrimp because brown shrimp are just so expensive. Secondly, I wanted a recipe that you could serve as an appetizer, like the traditional method, but could also be used as a replacement to canapes as a pre-dinner welcome nibble. And, finally, because I really love cucumber, garlic and chilli. Selfish I know but hey… ????

Ok, let’s get on an make them…

1. Gather all of the ingredients together

If you exclude seasoning, there are only 8 ingredients for this wonderful cucumber potted shrimp recipe. Shrimps and cucumber, obviously, garlic, chilli, paprika, rocket, radish and butter.

As a side note, you’ll see that I used one cucumber for this recipe. This made 5 potted shrimp and probably could have made 6 if I’d cut the cucumber smaller. The measurements for one cucumber are in the printable recipe below so just scale up if you want to make more than 5-6.

2. Prepare the ingredients

The key preparation here is clarifying the butter and I’ll show you how to do this in section 3 below. Regarding the other ingredients, however, there is a little bit of effort needed.

First the easy stuff. Just finely chop the garlic, chilli and rocket. Then roughly chop the shrimp. Just halving them will be fine. Finally, thinly slice the radish. You just need one slice for each cucumber pot.

For the cucumber, I partially peeled the skin. You can leave it all on or take it all off too. I just did it like this for decorative reasons.

Once the cucumber is peeled, cut the cumber into pots. As I mentioned before, I made 5 pots but you can make whatever size you want. Once cut, slice a thin slice from one end of each pot to use as the base. Finally, and using your finger, just poke out the seeds and clean through cold running water.

3. Clarify the butter

By clarifying, or drawing the butter you will remove most of the butter solids and any water and leave just the pure butterfat. To do this you need to first melt the butter and then leave off the heat for around 5 minutes.

Once the butter is melted gently pour the clarified butter from the pan to a bowl, leaving the solid matter behind. Alternatively, you can pour it through a mulsin cloth that will act like a fine sieve. Either way, the end result is a clear golden liquid.

4. Prepare the shrimp

Once the butter is clarified place this over low heat and add the shrimp. Heat this through for around a minute.

Now, add the chilli and garlic and, again, heat through for around 2 minutes this time.

Once cooked through, using a metal sieve, strain the clarified oil off and separate the oil from the shrimp, garlic and chilli.

Now, mix in the chopped rocket into the shrimp mixture and season to taste. Set this aside to cool in the fridge for around 30 minutes.

5. Pot the shrimps into the cucumber

Once the shrimp mixture has cooled and using a teaspoon, fill the cucumber pots with the shrimp being mindful to press the mixture down to the bottom of the pots.

Finally, reheat the clarified butter until warm and soft and gently pour this over each of the cucumber potted shrimp.

Set this aside in the fridge for at least an hour until the butter has set. And that’s it my fine foodie friends. Cucumber potted shrimp. Simple as that and so yummy!!

I do hope you enjoyed this twist on a British classic recipe. If you did and you’d like to see more when not sign up to my weekly newsletter at the top of the page. Or just click on one of my many other recipes like those below.

As always, many thanks for reading and until next time… Steve.

6. Nutritional values

7. Printable recipe

Steve Deacon

Founder & Writer

Hi, I'm Steve, founder of The Yum Yum Club. After years in the corporate rat race traveling the world, my wife Jen and I settled back in the UK to follow our true passion: great food and wine. Having worked in restaurant kitchens in my youth, I share honest home-cooked recipes, kitchen timing tips, and culinary discoveries.

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