I was just reading the post on the English desert dish, Spotted Dick, and that raises a question of my own concerning British cuisine:<BR><BR>What is Bubble and Squeak? Is it good? Do you have a recipe?<BR>

It is a saugage and potato dish. You fry up some link sausages (the squeak). In a separate pan you boil some chunked up potatoes (the bubble) After you fry the sausages, you drain the grease out of the skillet, add the drained potatoes to the skillet, and also add chopped cabbage. You cook it just for a few minutes until the cabbage gets done. Something that used to be cooked over fires a long time ago. It`s not bad.

I don't havemy own recipe, but I am a cook and I think the "squeak" is the cabbage.<BR>Is it good? The most PC thing I can think of is that it's an acquired taste.<BR><BR>

it's absolutly luvverly.<BR><BR>Its fried, pre cooked potatoes and cabbage (or similar brassica), and goes with just about everything.<BR><BR>Its very fatening as it absorbs a lot of oil in cooking.<BR><BR>Imagine colcannon fried.

recipe here:<BR><BR>http://www.foodfunandfacts.com/bubbleandsqueak.htm<BR><BR>

No sausage-just potatoes and brassicas.

Sheila is right - no sausages. The moisture in the cabbage "squeaks" when it hits the hot grease/potatoes.<BR><BR>May sound weird but it is really yummy.

And what of "toad in the hole" and "chips butty"?

1. Sausages in a thick batter base (like yorkshire pudding), baked in the oven.<BR><BR>2. A white bread sandwich containing thick cut chips (fries) and of course butter.

Okay, let’s here from people who really cook this. First, What is a “brassica?”<BR><BR>You’ve got my curiosity up so I checked out the recipe on the web as well as a couple of others. None mention “brassica,” one mentions using bacon, another sausages (“bangers”), yet another says sausages AND bacon. One calls for leftover fried potatoes, another leftover baked potatoes, yet another says I need to boil a fresh batch of potatoes.<BR><BR>Who cooks this and what do YOU use. (As a rule web recipe sites are an exercise in frustration…)<BR>

Brassica is any member of the cabbage family.<BR>Bubble and Squeak is a way of using up left-over food.<BR>Usually cooked during the week using left-over mashed potato and left-over cabbage, sprouts, broccoli or whatever and simply fried up.<BR>Very simple, very tasty!<BR>Regards<BR>Maggie.

Tell us more, Maggie...do YOU use sausage, bacon? what? how?

As Maggie says, it's just a way of using up leftover greens and potatoes, no big deal. It's just a family sort of thing, you wouldn't serve it to guests. You can add a bit of onion if you like or even a bit of leftover meat. The way I do it is rather like cooking hash. You fry it until it's brown and it ends up looking like a sort of fat pancake.

Maggie, if you haven't already, do give us your profile - you are an expert on these very unusual dishes, all UK I assume. Are you in the UK, or have I been asleep? I'm still reeling from all the details on spotted dick, I'd have thought you'd be rolling too, but no, you hung in there and told us about caster sugar, butter knobs, etc. I'm impressed! Big Al too.

B&S is the worst thing to come out of Britain since pop idol.<BR><BR>

The bubble and squeak was explained to me by a London friend as Maggie described it - taking leftover veggies with some substance to them and frying them. I think of it as a polyvegetable potato pancake.<BR><BR>Now I'm confused about toad in the hole. I thought it was a piece of white bread, a round hole cut in the center, placed in a fry pan and an egg broken into the whole and fried.

sorry, that would be "into the hole and fried"

Marna<BR><BR>TITH to me, is sausages in sort of yorkshire pudding batter.

Such interest!<BR>Franco!!! I have never used any sort of meats in bubble and squeak, but I do have a recipe that says you can throw anything in there including cooked meats (just to use it up I suppose). I think that the veggie version would be better.<BR>Sylvia: I suppose you could compare it to a Dustbin Omelette, except you don't use eggs.<BR>Fanny!! Yes I am in UK and these were dishes that I grew up with - who's Big Al?<BR>Tony: It's not my favourite dish either!<BR>Elvira: As Tony said, toad in the hole is a Yorkshire pudding batter with sausages added and usually served with a good onion gravy.<BR>Regards,<BR>Maggie.<BR>

The egg in fried toast is American toad in the hole. (many Americans still don't know what sort of "pudding" Yorkshire is...pudding here is Jello {or worse} and is almost always a desert.) but sausage and Yorkshire pudding is English toad in the hole. It is usually fixed in an oven, is it not, Maggie?<BR><BR>I too am curious if Maggie uses bacon, sausage or both in her B&S.