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Bubble and Squeak

A British dish of fried potatoes, cabbage, and cold beef.

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. Chop the cooked potatoes into large pieces.

  2. In a skillet, fry the chopped potatoes and boiled cabbage in a little butter, adding pepper and salt to taste.

  3. Lightly fry the slices of cold beef.

Serve

  1. In a hot dish, layer the beef with the fried vegetables alternately.

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

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  3. Cabbage + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together275 recipes

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

  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 beef
Provides the meat element, layered with the vegetables for the finished dish.
Boiled cabbage
Adds bulk and a mild, slightly sweet flavour when fried in butter.
Cooked potatoes
Fry to golden edges and form the starchy base of the dish.

The step that matters

Frying the potatoes and cabbage. The vegetables are already cooked, so the goal is to heat them through and brown the surfaces. Frying in a little fat over steady heat browns the starch and gives flavour, while overcrowding the pan would steam them instead.

Swap the cabbage

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

  1. Onionfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Tomatofits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

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