I tried making Margaret Thatcher’s mystery starter. I wish I hadn’t

Among Mrs T’s papers is a recipe for one of her signature dishes. One brave chef resurrects this uninspiring creamy mousse – and a long-forgotten taste of the 70s

Having a scientific background and an ordered mind, Margaret Thatcher, who liked to cook for herself and her husband Dennis as regularly as she could, was keen on following a recipe and, most especially, a method.

In the case of a recent find, discovered among her archives, in a file with an official stamp, the method is very simple indeed, but the result seems to have been one of her favourite dinner party offerings, which goes by the intriguing name of “mystery starter”. Dated 1976, the dish flies in the face of the grand pieces one might have found at a 70s dinner party: vegetables of all shapes and colours in aspic, fish mousse topped with pineapple and caviar – and all those dishes influenced by the likes of Fanny Cradock and her love of a starred piping nozzle and a drop of cochineal. It is simply tinned consommé – a classic of the gentleman’s club – mixed with cream cheese and curry powder.

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from The Guardian http://ift.tt/2yaCZ4i