The lady’s not for burning the dinner
MRS THATCHER’S go-to recipe for entertaining at home was a “mystery starter” made from beef consommé, cream cheese and curry powder, newly-released papers reveal.
The ingredients were blended together and left to set before being served in ramekins, topped with a layer of jellied soup and a black olive.
Leftover chicken, shrimps or peeled mushrooms could also be added for variety, according to Lady Thatcher’s recipe – one of several found in a file of her “favourites” dated 1979-1987.
The folder includes standard replies to some of the most popular requests and questions in letters to the Prime Minister, which were dealt with by Number 10’s secretaries, the so-called “garden room girls”.
Lady Thatcher’s recipe for orange and walnut cake, “lamb chops in a parcel”, and stuffed “courgettes maison” served with prawns and mornay sauce were also included in the file, which is part of the latest release of her private papers.
The folder also contains details of her favourite songs, psalms and foods, for use in correspondence.
Historian Chris Collins, who has compiled the papers as part of a staged release through the Churchill Archive Centre at Cambridge University, said it was likely that the recipes were from Lady Thatcher’s personal collection.
He said: “I don’t think she was a genius in the kitchen. But she was game. She actually liked doing things like that. She liked anything where you had to have a method, and you put in effort.”
He added: “To me it is quite possible that these came from some scrapbook that she once had.”
Earlier in her political career, as the young MP for Finchley in 1962, she had told her local paper that when first married, she had made brandy butter to serve with the Christmas pudding, but had displeased husband Denis when he discovered that it was his best stuff – since which time she had kept a small bottle of cooking brandy in her pantry for dessert and for “flaming” peaches or bananas.