Mould encountered around dish (8)
I believe the answer is:
template
'mould' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'encountered around dish' is the wordplay.
'encountered' becomes 'met' ('meet' can be a synonym of 'encounter').
'around' says the letters should be written in reverse.
'dish' becomes 'plate' (plate is a kind of dish).
'met' back-to-front is 'tem'.
'tem'+'plate'='TEMPLATE'
(Other definitions for template that I've seen before include "original design" , "Pattern or mould" , "Preset file or document format" , "Prototype" , "Pattern, model" .)