Bubble and Squeak - two ways

Bubble and Squeak Two Ways

Nora, there are two kinds of bubble and squeak according to the English cook, Jane Grigson. One is made from leftovers of roast meat. Do you ever have any of those? We don't, so we don't make it. The other is made from potatoes. We usually have some of those around. Both of them also have cabbage.

Bubble and Squeak - first way

Leftover roast meat (beef maybe)
Cabbage
Margarine or oil or bacon fat

1. Boil or steam the cabbage until just tender and then cut it up into square pieces. Drain the water from the cabbage pieces and pat-dry them with a paper towel. Keep these ready.
2. Cut up the leftover roast meat into strips. Cook them in some hot fat in a frying pan, until they are bubbling away. That's the bubble part. Don't cook them very much or they will be tough. Take them out of the pan and keep them ready.
3. Now add the cabbage pieces to the pan and press them down. This is could be the squeak part, because maybe the cabbage will make a squeaking sound while it cooks a bit and gets a bit brown.
4. Serve the meat and cabbage together.
5. Some people cook sausages instead of roast meat.

Bubble and Squeak - second way

Cabbage, cooked the way you do in the first recipe and chopped up
Potatoes, cooked and peeled
1 large onion, chopped
margarine, butter or bacon fat or cut up slices of bacon

1. First mash the potatoes really well. Mix them and the cooked and chopped cabbage together really well.
2. Heat up the magarine (or whatever) in a frying pan big enough for the potatoes and the cabbage together (which means a pretty big pan). Put the chopped onion in and cook it until it is soft and lightly brown (it should smell good). I like starting this off with cut up slices of bacon and leaving the bacon bits in for a bit more taste.
3. Now put the potato-cabbage mixture into the pan and press it down until it is like a cake in the pan. What you are going to do now is to cook it until the underside is nice and crusty brown. You have to guess a little about when that will happen and it takes some time.
4. When the underside of your cake is brown, cut it into pieces and turn the pieces over to do the other sides. This means you don't have to turn the whole thing over, which might not be possible to do without breaking it.
5. Keep on turning over and browning until it looks right. After all, everything is already cooked so you don't have to worry about having to time it just right. What you are doing by browning it this way is making some crunchy tasty bits to make it all taste better. Serve it from the pan onto plates.
6. You could serve this with fried slices of leftover meat or sausages if you want.
7. I am not sure when the bubbling or squeaking happens in this recipe. Maybe the fat bubbles and you squeak if you happen to touch something hot.