Name: Bubble and Squeak
Ingredients: leftover boiled beef; cabbage or savoy; butter or dripping

Why it works: Beef and cabbage work together. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 872 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Bubble and Squeak

Ingredients

leftover boiled beef
cabbage or savoy
butter or dripping

Directions

Cut the leftover boiled beef into thin slices, mixing fat and lean pieces.
If you have enough cabbage, mince it finely. If not, boil a small savoy until tender, then drain and chop it.
Fry the beef slices in a frying pan over medium heat with butter or dripping until heated through, but not dry or hard.
Place the beef on a hot dish to keep warm while you heat the cabbage in the frying pan until hot.
Serve the cabbage piled on a hot dish with the beef arranged around it immediately.

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.

Beef + cabbagetop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together872 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Beef + buttertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together10,847 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
Cabbage + buttertop 26% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,397 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).