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Bubble and Squeak

A British dish of fried potatoes, meat, and vegetables.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Bubble and Squeak

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Melt the butter or beef dripping in a frying pan.

  2. Fry the slices of cold meat until browned.

Cook and serve

  1. Mix the cold greens, mashed potatoes, shredded onion, salt, and pepper in a bowl.

  2. Add the mixture to the frying pan and stir continuously while frying for about 20 minutes.

  3. Serve hot, with the vegetables around the dish and the meat in the center.

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. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  2. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 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. Butter + potatotop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  5. Meat + potatotop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together786 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

What each ingredient does

Mashed potatoes
Bind the greens and form a starchy base that crisps into a golden crust.
Cold boiled or roast meat
Provides savoury flavour and browns in the hot fat.
Cold greens
Add bulk, colour and a slightly bitter, fresh note against the rich potatoes.
Butter or beef dripping
Conducts heat and adds richness, helping the surface brown.

The step that matters

Stir continuously while frying the mixture. Constant stirring spreads the moisture and fat evenly so the mixture heats through without scorching in patches. Letting it sit undisturbed for a while, by contrast, lets a crust form that gives the crisp golden texture the dish is known for.

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, meat, potato, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Asparagusfits about as well
  3. Onionthe original
  4. Carrotfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, meat, potato, 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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