Bubble and squeak is a dish to be enjoyed on Christmas Day, while for others its more of a regular occurence simply to use up leftover vegetables. Either way, bubble and squeak is a delicious treat filled with sprouts and cabbage within leftover mashed potato. You can get as creative as you like and even add in meat, but for an easy bubble and squeak recipe its best to keep ingredients to a minimum. BBC Good Food’s most highly rated recipe is by Saturday Kitchen regular Paul Merret, who advises the concoction “should be on everyone’s radar come Christmas time”.
Here’s how he recommends you make the dish:
Ingredients
One tablespoon of duck fat, goose fat or butter
Four rashers of streaky bacon, chopped
One onion, finely sliced
One garlic clove, chopped
15-20 cooked Brussels sprouts, sliced – or leftover boiled cabbage, shredded
400g cold leftover mashed potato or cold crushed boiled potatoes
Method
Melt 1 tbsp duck fat, goose fat or butter in a non-stick pan, allow it to get nice and hot, then add 4 chopped streaky bacon rashers.
As it begins to brown, add 1 finely sliced onion and 1 chopped garlic clove.
Next, add 15-20 sliced cooked Brussels sprouts or shredded boiled cabbage and let it colour slightly. All this will take 5-6 mins.
Add 400g cold mashed potato. Work everything together in the pan and push it down so that the mixture covers the base of the pan.
Allow the mixture to catch slightly on the base of the pan before turning it over and doing the same again. It’s the bits of potato that catch in the pan that define the term ‘bubble and squeak’, so be brave and let the mixture colour.
Cut into wedges and serve.
Paul’s recipe has many rave reviews on the Good Food website, with one person recommending it with grilled sausages and fried egg.
What is bubble and squeak?
Bubble and squeak is traditionally enjoyed as a breakfast but these days is often also served up as part of a dinner, alongside sausages.
The dish earned its name from the cabbage’s bubbling and squeaking sound during the cooking process.