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Bubble and Squeak

A fried cabbage and boiled salt beef or pork dish served with optional carrots or parsnips.

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

Directions

Prepare the cabbage

  1. Wash the cabbage well in salt and water.

  2. Boil a saucepan of water with 1 tablespoon of salt and a tiny piece of common soda.

  3. Add the cabbage to the boiling water.

  4. Cook for about 20 minutes until tender.

  5. Drain and place on a plate.

Fry the meat and cabbage

  1. Slice cold salt beef and a little fat, then place the sliced beef in a frying pan.

  2. Fry the meat over medium heat until light brown, turning occasionally to prevent burning.

  3. Arrange the fried meat in the center of a hot dish, cover, and keep warm in the oven.

  4. Chop the boiled cabbage into small pieces.

  5. Fry the chopped cabbage in the same pan for a few minutes, stirring to prevent burning.

Serve

  1. For serving, place the fried cabbage and any warmed chopped carrots or parsnips around the dish, with the slices of meat in the center.

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. 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

Salt beef or pork
Provides the main savoury flavour and protein, and browns in the pan to add richness.
Cabbage
Forms the bulk of the dish and turns tender and sweet when boiled, then crisps when fried.
Clarified dripping
Fat for frying that helps the meat and cabbage brown without sticking or burning.

The step that matters

Frying the chopped cabbage. Cabbage is already cooked and wet from boiling, so it can steam instead of browning. Draining well and frying in a hot pan with stirring lets surface moisture evaporate so the edges brown rather than turn soggy.

“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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