Rats Baked in Blood
Original Kaboose.com recipe by Stella Zedman
Photography by Lucy Schaeffer
Average User Rating:
This creepy casserole will have your guests scampering onto their chairs. Trick-or-treaters will love digging into this ghoulish ground beef dish at your next Halloween party.
Ingredients
For the rats:
- 1-1/2 lbs. lean ground beef
- 1/2 cup uncooked long grain white rice
- 1/2 medium onion, finely chopped
- 1 egg, beaten
- 1 teaspoon salt
- uncooked spaghetti, broken into quarters
- thinly sliced raw carrots
- black peppercorns, cooked black beans
For the sauce, um, blood:
- 1 can (19 oz.) crushed or ground tomatoes
- 1-1/2 cups water
- 1 tablespoon sugar
- 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
Cooking Instructions
- In a mixing bowl, combine the ground beef, rice, onion, egg and 1 teaspoon of the salt. Mix well.
- Now make the rats. Using a measuring cup, scoop out 1/4 cup of the ground beef mixture. Form it, by hand, into a firmly packed teardrop shape -- pointy on one end, rounded on the other. This is your basic rat. Place it into a 3-quart shallow baking dish and gently pinch in the neck area. Poke a piece of uncooked spaghetti into the larger rounded end as a tail. Repeat with the remaining ground beef mixture.
- When all the rats are neatly placed in the baking dish, stir together the tomatoes, water, sugar, Worcestershire sauce, remaining 1 teaspoon of salt and 1/4 teaspoon pepper. Pour over the rats. Bake at 350 degrees F for 40 minutes, basting occasionally with sauce. Then cover the dish with foil and bake for another 15 minutes, or until the rice is tender and the rats are fully cooked.
- Gently remove rats, one at a time, from the sauce and place gently on a serving platter. (Take care not to damage the tails -- they're fairly delicate.) Into each rat, insert two carrot slices as ears, peppercorns (or whatever) for eyes, and a few more broken strands of uncooked spaghetti for whiskers. Spoon sauce around the rats and serve, smiling wickedly.
Tips & Tricks
TIP:
This dish goes nicely with pasta or mashed potatoes.
Servings: Makes 4 to 6 servings (about 12 to 13 rats).
How kids can help
Mix the meat mixture and form the rats.
Garnish the finished rats by adding ears, eyes and whiskers.
Related Spooky Recipes:
Maggoty Pumpkin Soup
Severed Chicken Fingers with Toxic Dip
Related Sweet Recipes:
Spider Cakes
Owl-Shaped Sugar Cookies
Graveyard Cupcakes
Haunted House of Cupcakes
More Halloween Fare
