Eggs in Marie Rose Sauce – an Easy Vegetarian Starter

I’m not a vegetarian, but I don’t eat a great deal of meat – and certainly I never eat prawns, so when I was invited for dinner I didn’t want the prawn cocktail.  But what was similar to prawn cocktail that could be made without too much extra fuss?  I was quite happy not having a starter at all, but the host insisted.

The simple answer was to serve a simple dish of Eggs in Marie Rose Sauce: a boiled egg on a bed of lettuce and cucumber with the marie rose sauce, which can be poured over the top of the eggs, or be used as a base for them to sit on (it all goes down the same way doesn’t it!)

Marie rose sauce is what’s usually used in seafood cocktail and can be made with just two ingredients: mayonnaise and tomato ketchup.  While recipes will often include additional ingredients, such as cayenne pepper, lemon juice and black pepper, these aren’t really required.

My Egg in Marie Rose Sauce was served, then a sprinkling of cayenne pepper was added later.  The basic salad can be as exciting/different as you wish, this was a simple lettuce/cucumber base, but you can make it more exciting looking by cutting the cucumbers into chunks and adding in chopped peppers or anything else you’ve got to hand, or like!

To help the host out, rather than let them stand and watch one egg while it boiled in a saucepan of water, I took my one-egg microwave egg boiler with me.  One boiled egg produced without mess or fuss in just 7 minutes flat 🙂