Outraged expression when encountering new starter recipe that's monstrously complex (8)
I believe the answer is:
fiendish
'monstrously complex' is the definition.
Both the definition and answer are adjectives. Perhaps you can see an association between them that I don't see?
'outraged expression when encountering new starter recipe' is the wordplay.
'outraged expression' becomes 'fie' (I can't explain this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
'when encountering' says to put letters next to each other.
'starter' indicates taking the first letters.
'recipe' becomes 'dish'.
The first letter of 'new' is 'n'.
'fie'+'n'+'dish'='FIENDISH'
'that's' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for fiendish that I've seen before include "Diabolic" , "Diabolical" , "Terrible" , "Very difficult" , "Infernal" .)