Princess Diana’s Favorite Recipes From Her Royal Chef
While watching this season of Netflix’s “The Crown”, I recalled that Princess Diana’s chef once told me that after she died, he turned down a job offer with Prince Charles and Camilla.
“I would have forever felt Princess Diana looking down on me saying,’You are not going to cook for that woman, are you?” chef Darren McGrady had said.
At least the Princess of Wales could count on her chef for loyalty, even though she apparently got none from her husband. (Can you tell I’m not a Charles-and-Camilla fan?)
Chef McGrady writes of happier times in his book, “Eating Royally.” It offers a peek into the palaces where he spent four years as Diana’s chef at Kensington Palace, and 11 years cooking for Queen Elizabeth II. (He shared the Queen’s favorite chocolate ganache birthday cake recipe, too.) And he also shared the recipe for chocolate biscuit cake that was Prince William’s groom’s cake.
Back in my food editor days, I interviewed McGrady, who now lives in Dallas. He started out as a junior cook at Buckingham Palace in the early 1980s, soon after Prince Charles and Diana married. By the time they separated, he had worked his way up to senior pastry chef and was ready for a change.
Diana’s kitchen at Kensington Palace was more relaxed. William and Harry could wander in and eat ice cream out of the container while sitting in the windowsill.
“You didn’t get that at Buckingham Palace. If the boys wanted ice cream, the Queen would call her page, who in turn would call the head chef. The head chef would call the pastry kitchen and the pastry chef would in turn call the silver pantry for some silver dishes to present it on. The ice cream would be formed into decorated quenelle shapes and placed in the silver dessert dish. Then it was off to the linen room to get the proper napkin.”
McGrady’s cookbook’s recipes are sprinkled with lots of personal tidbits — helping princes Harry and William make their “Mummy’s” favorite stuffed eggplant, dancing with Diana at royal balls, and helping the queen rescue her belongings while Windsor Castle was on fire.
But he walked away from another book deal because he refused to divulge any juicy gossip about the Princess’s love life. “Never have, never will,” he said.
Some tidbits from McGrady’s book:
-Diana’s favorite dessert was Bread and Butter Pudding. “It’s a cross between a pudding and creme brulee, a real nursery comfort food,” McGrady said. “She couldn’t resist going for seconds.”
-A favorite savory dish was eggplant stuffed with zucchini, bell pepper, celery, onion, mushrooms, bacon and mozzarella.
-Diana had McGrady develop low-cal versions of some recipes, such as the Chilled Tomato Dill Mousse with Lobster (recipe below). Her guests would receive the full-fat version, while she ate the low-fat version.
-One weekend when he was off, Diana tried to cook pasta on her own. “She must have let the pasta water boil over. The gas pilot light blew out, and by Sunday morning the princess could smell gas,” McGrady wrote. “She called security and they immediately sent out a call to the local firehouse. When I came back on Monday, the princess gleefully informed me that she had 12 hunky men in her house while I was gone.”
-When Diana hosted a lunch for Clint Eastwood, it was the only time that McGrady was called to the dining room. Eastwood wanted to thank him personally.
-Prince Harry once tried to forge a note requesting pizza for dinner, but the 8-year-old’s handwriting gave him away.
-McGrady once caused Diana to break out in red splotches when he made her a glass of beet juice. He didn’t know it should be diluted with carrot or apple juice. “Aargh, Darren!” she cried. “I think you’ve poisoned me!”
“After a quick stint on a tanning bed, the princess’s blotches began to fade and she was able to make her afternoon appointments,” McGrady wrote.
Although he noticed some inaccuracies in the movie, “The Queen,” he thought it captured the royal family’s bewilderment over Diana’s death.
“They wondered, ‘Why everyone was making such a fuss?’ They come from Victorian times. They were brought up with the stiff British upper lip,” he said. “And to see the princess crying in public or getting on her knees and hugging children or taking off her gloves and touching AIDS patients — it was like two different eras meeting each other and not knowing what to do.”
After Diana’s death, he decided to move “across the Pond,” to Dallas, where he caters charity dinners and balls. He also teaches cooking classes and maintains a Web site, www.theroyalchef.com.
He said he has no plans to go back to palace cooking — “Cooking for the Princess was like going out at the top.”
CHILLED TOMATO AND DILL MOUSSE WITH LOBSTER
Diana served this recipe to her guests while she ate a fat-free version.
1/2 teaspoon vegetable oil
1 pound ripe tomatoes, chopped
3 tablespoons finely minced onion
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1/2 cup sour cream
1/4 cup heavy cream
1 tablespoon tomato paste
Salt and freshly ground pepper
1 small bunch fresh dill, finely chopped
1 1/2 packets unflavored gelatin
1 lemon, halved
6 seven-ounce lobster tails, steamed and split down the center
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 bunch fresh chives, chopped
3 bunches watercress, washed and stems removed
Lightly brush six small ramekins with the vegetable oil. Set aside. In a food processor, puree tomatoes with chopped onion. Strain the pulp into a bowl, pressing on the tomatoes to push as much as possible through the sieve into the bowl. In a separate bowl, combine mayonnaise, sour cream, heavy cream and tomato paste. Fold into the tomato/onion puree. Stir in a pinch of salt and pepper and the dill.
Place the gelatin into a small saucepan, and moisten it with the juice of 1/2 of the lemon. If the lemon doesn’t have a lot of juice, you may need to add up to a tablespoon of water. Reserve remaining 1/2 lemon for the lobster vinaigrette. Melt the gelatin over very low heat until it dissolves. Let it cool a moment, and then pour the gelatin into the tomato mousse, mixing as you pour. Taste for salt and pepper.
Pour the finished mixture into the ramekins and refrigerate for at least 1 hour. Just before serving, run a small knife around the edge of the mold, dip the ramekin into a bowl of hot water to soften the gelatin and turn out the mousse onto a plate.
Toss the split lobster tails with the olive oil, remaining lemon juice, salt, pepper and chopped chives. Nestle the lobster on a bed of watercress next to the tomato mousse. — “Eating Royally,” by Darren McGrady
FAT-FREE CHILLED TOMATO AND DILL MOUSSE
1 pound vine-ripe tomatoes, chopped
2 tablespoons chopped onion
8 ounces fat-free cream cheese
2 tablespoons fat-free sour cream
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1 packet unflavored gelatin
1/3 cup fat-free chicken broth
1 teaspoon lemon juice
Salt and freshly ground pepper
1 tablespoon chopped fresh dill
Put the tomatoes and onions in a food processor and blend until they become somewhat soupy. Strain through a sieve into a large bowl. Discard the remaining seeds and skins. Whisk in the cream cheese, sour cream and tomato paste until there are no lumps. In a small saucepan, add gelatin, chicken broth and lemon juice. Stir until softened, and then warm the saucepan over low heat until the gelatin has dissolved. Whisk gelatin mixture into the tomato mixture, and season with the salt and pepper to taste.
Fold in the dill, and pour the tomato mousse into six ramekins. Refrigerate until uncovered for at least 2 hours. Serve in the ramekins, or dip the ramekins in hot water, run a knife around the edge of the molds, and invert onto plates. — “Eating Royally,” by Darren McGrady
BREAD AND BUTTER PUDDING
This was Diana’s all-time favorite, so much so that she once had a royal reporter write that “Darren makes the best bread and butter pudding in the world.”
3 ounces raisins
1/4 cup Amaretto liqueur (or 1 teaspoon almond extract plus enough water to equal 1/4 cup)
12 slices white bread, crusts removed
1 1/2 stick unsalted butter, melted
9 egg yolks
2 teaspoons vanilla bean paste
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup milk
2 cups heavy cream
2 tablespoons granulated sugar to dust top of pudding
3 ounces sliced almonds, lightly toasted
2 tablespoons powdered sugar
Soak raisins in Amaretto, leave covered with plastic wrap at room temperature 6-8 hours or overnight.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cut four slices of the bread into 1/2-inch dice, and spread diced bread on the bottom of a casserole dish. Sprinkle the raisins on top of the bread cubes and pour any remaining liquid over the bread.
Cut the remaining eight slices of bread in half diagonally, and then cut each half slice in half diagonally to create 4 even triangles per slice. Dip triangles into the butter and arrange on top of the raisins, overlapping triangles slightly. Pour any remaining butter over the top of the bread.
Whisk yolks, vanilla paste and sugar in a large bowl until combined. Bring the milk and cream to a boil in a heavy saucepan over high heat, and pour the hot mix onto the egg yolks, whisking constantly. Pour the warm egg mixture over the bread, making sure all of the bread is coated, and set aside for 20 minutes to allow the egg mixture to soak into the bread.
Place the casserole dish in a roasting tray filled with hot water halfway up the sides of the casserole dish, and bake on the middle rack in the oven for 30-45 minutes, or until golden brown on top with the filling just set.
Remove the dish from the oven and roasting tray, and sprinkle with the extra sugar. Broil or use a creme brulee torch to caramelize the sugar. Sprinkle with the toasted sliced almonds, and dust with powdered sugar. Cool slightly and serve warm with a jug of cream and some fresh berries. — “Eating Royally,” by Darren McGrady