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Bubble and Squeak, or Fried Beef and Cabbage

A fried dish of sliced corned beef and cabbage, seasoned with pepper and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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, or Fried Beef and Cabbage

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut slices of cold boiled corned beef, using equal parts fat and lean.

  2. Boil the white cabbage until tender, then drain and chop it finely.

Cook the cabbage

  1. Fry the chopped cabbage in a pan, sprinkling a little pepper over it.

  2. Heat the cabbage until hot, but do not overcook to avoid it becoming dry.

  3. Remove the beef and place it in a sieve to drain.

  4. Add the cabbage back to the pan, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and stir while heating until it absorbs the fat.

Serve

  1. Place the cabbage in the center of a serving dish and arrange the beef slices around it, alternating between fat and lean.

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

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

  3. Beef + cabbagetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together872 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

White cabbage
Forms the bulk of the dish and turns soft and crisp-edged when fried, giving texture.
Cold boiled corned beef
Provides savoury meat flavour and richness from its fat, which the cabbage absorbs.

The step that matters

Heat the cabbage until hot without overcooking. Cabbage that cooks too long loses moisture and turns dry and limp, so it should be heated just until hot and then combined with the fat.

Swap the cabbage

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, 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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