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Bubble and Squeak

A fried dish of chopped leftover vegetables, seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,107 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Bubble and Squeak

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the leftover vegetables into small pieces.

  2. Heat butter or oil in a skillet over medium heat.

Cook

  1. Add the chopped vegetables and press them down with a spatula.

  2. Cook until the bottom is browned, then flip and brown the other side.

  3. Season with salt and pepper before serving.

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 + carrottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,107 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  2. Cabbage + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,081 recipes

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

  3. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  4. Cabbage + carrottop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,505 recipes

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

  5. Cabbage + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together275 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

Leftover cooked vegetables
Form the bulk of the dish; their starch and moisture help the cakes hold together and brown.
Butter or oil
Conducts heat into the vegetables and promotes browning on the surface.

The step that matters

Press the vegetables down and leave them until the bottom browns. Pressing packs the pieces into a cohesive cake, and leaving it undisturbed lets a browned crust form. Moving or stirring too early prevents browning and can cause the cake to break apart.

Flavor stand-ins for the cabbage

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

  1. Capsicumbetter flavor fit
  2. Parsnipbetter flavor fit
  3. Onionbetter flavor fit
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, carrot, butter, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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