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Bubble and Squeak

A British dish of cold meat and boiled vegetables simmered in stock until the mixture absorbs half the liquid.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Cauliflower and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 286 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Bubble and Squeak

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a pot, combine the cold meat, peas, cauliflower, cabbage, potatoes, turnips, and carrots.

  2. Add pepper, salt, sliced green ginger, and enough stock to cover the mixture.

  3. Simmer until the meat and vegetables have absorbed half the stock.

  4. Serve hot, bubbling, and 'squeaking'.

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. Cauliflower + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together286 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Turnip + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Cauliflower + cabbagetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together305 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Cabbage + turniptop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together897 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Potato + carrottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,107 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Cold meat
Provides the savoury base and protein that flavours the stock as it simmers.
Potatoes
Starch that softens and thickens the mixture while absorbing the stock.
Cabbage
Adds bulk and a mild sweetness as it cooks down in the stock.
Cauliflower
Adds bulk and a soft texture as it simmers with the other vegetables.
Good stock
Supplies the cooking liquid that the meat and vegetables gradually absorb, adding savouriness.

The step that matters

Simmer until the stock is absorbed. Simmering long enough lets the meat and vegetables soak up half the stock, concentrating flavour. Stopping too early leaves the dish watery, while cooking too long can dry it out.

Swap the peas

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

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Lentilsfits better
  3. Chestnutfits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, cauliflower, cabbage, potato, turnip, carrot, 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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