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Bubble and Squeak

A British dish of fried cold roast beef, mashed potatoes, greens, onion, butter, and seasonings.

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

Fry the meat and onion

  1. Melt a little butter or fat in a frying pan.

  2. Add the meat and fry quickly until lightly browned on both sides, then remove and keep hot.

  3. Add the onion to the pan and fry until brown.

Make the bubble and squeak

  1. Stir in the potatoes and greens, seasoning to taste.

  2. Stir until thoroughly hot, then add a little vinegar if desired.

Serve

  1. Turn onto a hot dish and place the slices of meat on top before serving.

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. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  3. Beef + potatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,052 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  4. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  5. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cold mashed potatoes
Provide starch and bulk that crisp up and bind the mixture in the pan.
Cold greens
Add moisture and fresh flavour, and their texture softens as they heat through.
Onion
Adds sweetness and savoury depth as it browns in the fat.
Roast or boiled beef
Adds meaty flavour, and quick frying gives its surface browning.

The step that matters

Fry the meat quickly until lightly browned. High heat for a short time browns the surface through the Maillard reaction, adding flavour, while prolonged cooking would toughen and dry the thin slices.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, onion, butter, pepper, vinegar):

  1. Potatothe original
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Tomatofits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, onion, butter, pepper, vinegar. 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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