Hello there!
Hope you are all having a lovely, relaxed Saturday! It's very chilly over here; temperatures have dropped very low and it could snow! Would love the latter to happen, just not next week as my sister is coming to visit. Would not appreciate it then!
Today has been a really good day when it comes to food. The morning started off with the usual, and then after all morning getting ready, Fabio and I went to Cirencester to have a little wander and some lunch. If you've never been to Cirencester, I'd definitely recommend it. It's so cute and quaint, but not too small; it has a wide selection of shops. I actually think it's on par with Cheltenham when it comes to shopping!
Two foodie destinations we stumbled upon:
Jesse's Bistro: A 2AA Rosette restaurant up a little side street, behind Jesse's Butchers, where the produce comes from. It's quite hidden which just adds to its character. It's fairly pricey, but nice for the kind of afternoon where you fancy a treat, or perhaps a meal with the 'rents!
Fabio opted for the twice baked cheese souffle. I had a little taste and it was perfectly light and creamy, and very cheesy, but not too overpowering.
For ours mains I had the whole cotswold Roast partridge with game chips, autumn vegetables and game juniper sauce. The partridge was tender and the veg just right. The game chips were quite something though! At first I thought they were crisps, which they technically were, but they had an oily 'just fried' taste; they were shaped like a criss cross pattern. Never seen anything like them before! Odd, but nice.
Fabio had the beef burger with Emmental cheese, gherkin, beef tomato and chips, dressed leaves and club sauce. The burger looked so good! And Fabio had high praises for it (he is quite a burger connoisseur). It was the kind of burger that looked like it would be hard to get your mouth around. The club sauce also tasted like pickles, which I found interesting.
http://www.jessesbistro.co.uk
Keiths: OMG, this place is amazing. It's like a tiny (very tiny - it's quite hard to walk through it as it's so popular!) little coffee shop but then it also sells an array of coffee beans (which they will grind to your liking for you) and tea, behind the counter. it's very oldey-worldy, and smells divine. The majority of this 'emporium' is the large stock of European sweets and biscuits they sell. There were many boxes of chocolates and biscuits, from the German Lebuchen to the French Mon Cheri; many bars of marzipan, and also jars of conserves - I felt like I was on holiday in all the countries at once!
Fab and I picked up a bag of Christmas coffee from behind the counter and I found a sachet of creme brûlée flavoured hot chocolate and candy cane hot chocolate. Apparently it's from Canada, so that'll be interesting to try!
They don't have a website, but here's an interesting article about it from the Gloucestershire Echo. Echo http://www.gloucestershireecho.co.uk/Keith-s-coffee-shop-Cirencester-institution-40/story-21079610-detail/story.html
Tom Kha Gai
As you know, there other night I experimented with a recipe from Rosa's Thai Cafe and I said I would share it with you. We both were very pleased with this spicy, traditional thai soup as it was very quick to make, yet very rewarding, and warming!
Ingredients
Serves 2
500ml Coconut milk
4 lemongrass stalks (you can find these in Waitrose)
4 slices of galangal (I couldn't find them in veg form, so I used 2 tbsp of the galangal paste - also found in Waitrose)
3 red chillies, sliced
4 coriander roots (left this out because of my coriander dislike)
8 white beech or small button mushrooms, quartered
5 cherry tomatoes, halved
250g chicken breast, sliced into small strips
2 tbsp of Nam Pla (thai fish sauce)
Coriander leaves to garnish (obviously I left this out!)
1. Heat coconut milk until boil.
2. Add sliced lemongrass, galangal, chillies, coriander root, mushrooms and tomatoes. Make sure you use a big enough pan at the start, as I was lucky all of it fit in the pan I chose.
3. Add chicken and stir over high heat for 2-3 mins until almost cooked through.
4. Season with fish sauce and lime juice and stir over high heat until cooked all way through.
5. Garnish with coriander, if you're crazy, and serve immediately.
We served ours with sticky rice.
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