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Bubble and Squeak

A British dish of fried roast beef, mashed potatoes, greens, and onions.

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

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

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

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

  4. Stir in the potatoes and greens, seasoning to taste, then heat thoroughly and add vinegar if desired.

  5. Transfer to a hot dish, placing the meat slices on top, and serve.

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
Form the bulk of the dish and crisp to a golden crust in the hot fat.
Butter or dripping
Conducts heat and fries the other ingredients, adding richness and browning.
Onion
Adds savoury sweetness as it browns in the pan.
Cold roast or boiled beef
Provides the meat element, browning lightly on the surface for flavour.

The step that matters

Stir in the potatoes and greens, then heat thoroughly. The potatoes must be heated all the way through, since the mixture is cold from the start. Leaving the mixture pressed flat in the pan lets its underside brown and crisp, while stirring too often prevents that crust from forming.

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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