Halloween Kraken Pie Recipe

Sometimes I look back at my Halloween recipes with an immeasurable sense of pride . This Kraken Pie is one of them. It was so effectively creepy and delicious that I almost wanted to make this often, out of Halloween season too.

In the vein of confronting some of my phobias (the open sea being one of them, which is why I'm yet to venture on a cruise), the Kraken Rising pie was a suggestion sent to me by Joanne who often sends me fantastic cooking ideas. It would feed the two vegetarians that were coming.

The base is easy-it's garlic, spinach, onion and feta and shaping the Kraken was the biggest challenge. It's easiest if you fill it with just pastry. The cyclops rising from the sea wrestling with a boat was just the finishing touch. I was really worried that this wouldn't work out but it ended up being one of my favourite items of the night. Just make sure nobody eats the boat.

Kraken Rising Pie

An Original Recipe by Lorraine Elliott

Preparation time: 30 minutes

Cooking time: 30 minutes

• 250g/9 ozs. fresh or frozen spinach chopped and drained
• 200g/7 ozs Danish feta (or other creamy feta)
• 1/2 onion, diced
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1.5 cups shredded cheese (tasty, cheddar, mozzarella, whatever you like)
• 2 eggs plus 1 egg yolk extra
• 2 sheets puff pastry
• 1 large black olive
• a small toy boat (make sure people don't eat this)

Step 1 - Make the filling by combining the spinach, feta, onion, garlic, cheese and eggs in a food processor and process until cohesive. Grease a pie plate with butter or oil and fill with the cheese spinach filling and refrigerate until needed.

Step 2 - Preheat the oven to 220C/428F. Thaw the pastry and with a fluted cutter roller cut out some "legs" tapering them at the end as shown-you won't need the entire sheet of pastry for the legs but save some for attaching the "eye".

Step 3 - Then shape a head which is round. I cut out a round of pastry about 15cms/6 inches in diameter and molded the off cuts from the rest of the pastry square into a round ball to and placed the ball in the centre of the circle. Press together and shape into a head shape. Place the kraken head in the centre of the pie plate and place the legs around it positioning the legs so that it looks like it is swimming. Then cut out some pastry to make a top and bottom eyelid and make sure they fit the size of the olive. Secure the olive to the pastry and "glue" the eyelids on with the egg yolk. Brush the rest of the pastry with the egg yolk. Bake for 25 minutes until golden.

Step 3 - Place the toy boat somewhere amongst its legs.