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Bubble and Squeak

A fried dish of sliced cold meat and cabbage with onion, seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cabbage and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,081 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Bubble and Squeak

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Heat 1 ounce of drippings in a frying pan.

  2. Peel and chop half an onion with any cold vegetables on hand.

Cook

  1. Slice the cold meat thickly and fry it in the drippings, then keep it hot on a dish.

  2. Fry the onion in the same pan until pale yellow.

  3. Add the cold vegetables to the onion and fry until slightly brown, seasoning with salt and pepper.

Serve

  1. Arrange the vegetables around the meat on the hot dish and serve immediately.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Cabbage + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,081 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Cabbage + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,001 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Meat + oniontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,364 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Meat + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,777 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Cold meat
Forms the main body of the dish and browns in the hot drippings.
Remains of cold cabbage
Provides the bulk of the vegetables and browns slightly in the pan.
Onion
Adds savoury sweetness as it softens and turns pale yellow in the fat.
Drippings
Conducts heat in the pan and carries flavour, helping the meat and vegetables brown.

The step that matters

Fry the cold vegetables until slightly brown. Cold cooked vegetables are already soft and moist, so they need enough hot fat and direct contact with the pan to brown rather than steam. Crowding the pan or adding too little fat leads to a soggy result.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, cabbage, pepper):

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Cauliflowerfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, cabbage, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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