I was approached by a client for a Halloween party who wanted a ghoulish menu and the food to look eerie and borderline gross yet still taste delicious. This is probably one of the most counterintuitive tasks a chef would ever undertake, to purposely make his/her food look unappealing and disgusting.

I came up with a few ideas, did some research and ended up having a blast. The following are a couple of the hits from the party.

Fogging witches brew punch:

For this I used sheets of gelatin to partially set a mixture of San Pelligrino and Kool-Aid… I added some gummy worms and chunks of fieldberries for effect. We set the punch bowl inside the cauldren, then poured hot water around the punch and dropped in some dry ice. The rollling fog was a great effect and as the punch warmed and cooled it’s viscosity changed from runny to sloppy and back. For further effect, I rinsed a latex glove, filled it with water and a little purple food coloring and froze overnight to create a frost bitten severed hand.

Witches Brew Cauldren

Goat Cheese Eyeballs:

Second on the menu were goat cheese eyeballs… I simply rolled some chevre, flattened and topped with a slive of pimento stuffed olive. This creates the white of the eyes with a green iris and red pupil.

Goat Cheese Eyeballs

Bat Wings:

Moving on to one of my favourites, bat wings. I went to Cioffi’s italian market and butcher on Hastings and got really nice chicken wings with the joint attached. I boiled them in a mixture of squid ink and dry rub to both impart a cajun spiciness and some colour. I then tossed them with black food coloring and more dry rub. They were later baked in the oven to get crispy and served with guano dip (blue cheese ranch).

Bat Wings

Putrid-Nesca – Squid Ink Linguine Puttanesca:

My final dish and I think the grossest and tastiest of all was “Putrid-nesca”. Squid ink linguine puttanesca topped with marinated squid chunks. The key to this dish was getting pre-made squid-ink (actually cuddlefish ink) linguine noodles and cooking them in squid ink infused water. I added 6 tbsp of the ink to the water to intensify the colour and flavour. I cut all of the ingredients large and chunky to create an entrail effect. The dish was a hit and one of the best puttanesca’s I ever made. If you wanted to take the look to the next level, use whole anchovy fillets as garnish instead of using anchovy paste in the sauce.

Putrid-nesca - Squid Ink Linguine Puttanesca

I hope everyone had a fun and safe Halloween. Stay tuned for Christmas party dinner ideas.

This has been A Chef’s Help on a ghoulish Halloween menu