ladies and gentlemen boys and girls welcome to London and welcome to my home
it's winter here in London it's a Sunday and it looks like a typical winters day
outside it's cold gray overcast it looks like
it's going to rain a very typical winter's day however I don't want to stay in today
we're going to go for a walk in one of South East London's parks and maybe
stop at the pub as well so when I get home I'll be a little bit cold and hungry so I want
something warming and comforting in the oven to eat when I get back so I'm gonna make a stew
today I'am going to make a beef stew so I've got the ingredients here
I'll cook these pop them in the oven and then we can go for a walk and maybe a drink before its ready
so ingredients for this an onion and some garlic I'm
going to chop the onion garlic brown it off with some beef got a big lump of
topside beef which I'am going to chop into bite-sized pieces all of this will
be chopped into bite size pieces you don't want to be attacking this stew with a knife and
fork you want to be shoving it in with a spoon so
once that's browned off I'am going to de-glaze the pan a little with some
Guinness if you haven't got Guinness Guinness do a larger you could use that instead its called
hop house 13 I've tested this expensively it's very good so to the onion garlic beef and Guinness
I'm gonna add parsnips and carrots and celery which gonna peel
chopped into bite-sized bits chopped tomatoes a couple of cans of that
not sure if I'll need two but I've got two and some beef stock and then I'am going to
and then I'am going to cook all that for a few hours so it will be ready when we get back
a couple of additions to the basic stew got some bone marrow to pop in there which should
make it rich and buttery not gonna roast it first just gonna whack it in
I haven't got time I could to that as well add dumplings I may add dumplings shredded beef suite there
there and some self raising flour to make dumplings with whether I make them
or not is a different thing they take 20 minutes so depends how hungry I am when
walk back in through the door if I can wait 20 minutes I'll make dumplings
but I probably won't want to wait 20 minutes so I'll probably just want to eat it right there and then
but that's an option right let me get cooking and then we'll go to the park and the pub
(music)
okay all of the ingredients are in the pan I'am gonna get it in the oven 150 degrees
centigrade it would probably be cooked in around three hours the sweet spots around five
hours so I'll get this in the oven go for a walk in the park stop at the pub and then by
the time I come back it will be cooked Marmite oven gloves who knew Marmite was
a lifestyle brand it is that's it let's go to the park and the pub
okay we've come to Crystal Palace in southeast London the train to Crystal
Palace station its a very grand old station that was built for the Crystal Palace
that was here there's still a park in the grounds of what where the Crystal
Palace stood and you can walk around the ruins in the park still so we'll take a
look at the park the sun's coming out a little clearance in the clouds so it looks like its going to be a nice afternoon
Crystal Palace was not
originally a place the area is named after the building that once stood here
a cast iron and plate glass structure the size of a palace originally built in
Hyde Park to host the Great Exhibition of 1851 and three times the size of
St.Paul's Cathedral after the exhibition the building was dismantled and rebuilt
here on what was at the time Penge common at the top of Sydenham hill also
when rebuilt it was enlarged and was the biggest thing in London 1,600 feet
of glass and iron with two 300 foot water towers to feed the grounds and Gardens
fountains it reopened here in 1854 and looked like a gigantic green house the
palace was described as the pleasure palace of Londoners rich and poor it had
classical courts galleries an Avery Aquarium and a theatre the Crystal
Palace hosted many exhibitions events flower shows animal shows and concerts
as did the landscape palace grounds which are now Crystal Palace Park it
hosted many sporting events including for many years the FA Cup final the
Crystal Palace enjoyed decades of success after opened but from the 1890's it
declined in popularity which meant a decline in profitability which resulted
in a decline in its state of repair and ultimately led to bankruptcy in 1911 by
the 1920s the Crystal Palace was in public ownership and back in business
and eventually back in profitability but on the 30th of
November 1936 a catastrophic fire destroyed the palace there is much
speculation about the cause of the fire but the fire quickly swept through the
palaces wooden floors and turned the glass roof into a destructive rain of
molten glass it said the glow from the fire was so
immense it could be seen from eight counties and over a hundred thousand
people came to see the inferno
up here amongst the old ruins of the Crystal Palace is a great spot to catch sunset
over the whole of Southeast London as you can see there is quite a few people up
here enjoying this evening sunset
the Palace was insured but not enough to be
completely rebuilt and despite plans over the years the site has never been
redeveloped and so some of the original palace ruins and remains are still here
and the former palace steps are now a historic entrance to the park
okay now the clouds have cleared its actually turned out to be a really nice day it's
still pretty cold the Sun is just setting so we're going to head from the
ruins of the old Crystal Palace here down through the park to a pub on the edge
of the park
Crystal Palace Park is home to some famous statues of dinosaurs and other
animals built for what was the Crystal Palace Grounds in the 1850s they were
the first attempts to create full-scale three-dimensional models of prehistoric
animals and they impressed visitors of the day they are based on what experts
believe these animals to look like based on evidence available in the 1850s
however with more finds and evidence available today some are pretty close others
were wildly inaccurate okay we've just come out of one of the entrances at the
other end of Crystal Palace Park here and just by this entrance below this
bridge here is an amazing little pub the bridge house we're gonna pop in there
and it's right next to another train station West page so when you've had a drink in the pub
you can get a train back home
OK so we just got home and as soon as we walked in the first thing you can smell
is the stew and it smells phenomenal I'am far too impatient and far too hungry to cook
dumplings and well make dumplings and then wait 20 minutes for them to cook so gonna have
some bread and butter with the stew instead so let's get this stew out of the
oven and take a look at it
I left the lid a little bit ajar so hopefully it will have reduced down
a little bit to its had about five hours now
okay let's plate up the stew
okay so let's try the stew it smells phenomenal try some of the beef first of all
that's amazing melt-in-your-mouth
some of the vegetables
all the flavors have melded together I've got the guineas the bone marrows
melted away to make it creamy fat from the beef which had reduced down as well you
try some of the parsnip
that's delicious okay I'm going to demolish this some
bread and butter with it as well to soak up some of the stew juices I hope you
enjoyed this little look at a Sunday stew
see you again soon Toodles!
The End