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Bubble and Squeak

Bubble and Squeak is a dish of boiled cabbage and salted beef, fried and broiled.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 the cabbage

  1. Chop the boiled white cabbage.

  2. Season the cabbage with salt and pepper.

  3. Fry the cabbage in butter until heated through.

Prepare the beef

  1. Slice the cold boiled salted beef and season with pepper.

  2. Broil the beef slices until warmed but still slightly rare.

Plate and serve

  1. Place the fried cabbage in a dish, arrange the broiled beef slices around it, and serve hot.

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. Pepper + beeftop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  3. Cabbage + beeftop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together872 recipes

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

  4. Butter + beeftop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,847 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  5. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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 browns in butter for a crisp, savoury texture.
Butter
Fat that fries the cabbage, carrying heat and adding richness and browning.
Cold boiled salted beef
Provides savoury, meaty flavour and a firm texture that contrasts with the cabbage.

The step that matters

Broil the beef only until warmed but still slightly rare. Beef is lean and its proteins tighten and dry out with prolonged high heat, so overcooking makes it tough. Stopping while it is still slightly pink keeps it tender and juicy.

Swap the cabbage

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

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

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