[Urbane Guerrilla]

Since there didn't seem to be a recipe thread per se, I'll lead off with The Frugal Gourmet's recipe for Bubble-And-Squeak, with some comments. By popular demand among the Cellar's potato fiends...


BUBBLE-AND-SQUEAK

3 unpeeled potatoes, boiled
4 cups cabbage, chopped, blanched
1/2 med yellow onion, peeled, chopped
1 zucchini, grated or julienned
1 carrot, grated or julienned, optional
3 or more slices bacon, browned, chopped; reserve the fat
1/4 cup diced ham or Spam
fresh coarse-ground black pepper, to taste; salt ditto
English-y cheeses to top, optional

Fry the bacon and boil the potatoes, which may be cut up into thirds if you like; blanch the chopped cabbage in the potato water. Mash the potatoes into rough lumps with hands or the bent-wire type of potato masher. Just break them up some, don't reduce them to paste. Add everything else but the reserved bacon fat and stir together in a mixing bowl.

Heat a frying pan of any size that suits; nonstick ones are okay too. Put the bacon fat in the pan and press the potato mixture into the pan after it with a basting spoon or a spatula. Fry the resulting pressed layer of potato mixture until the bottom is golden brown, over medium-low to medium heat. The Froog says half an hour, but this depends on how thick you've loaded the pan. A too-heavy smell of frying potatoes says you're starting to burn it. Loosen it in the pan with the spatula, around the edges and underneath, clap an inverted plate on top of the frying pan and upend the whole thing so the bubble-and-squeak falls out on the plate. Top with a cheese you like, if desired; crumbled, grated, or sliced thin.

* * * *

I've tried things like adding red pepper, Italian seasoning, or minced garlic, and I'm not convinced they do anything for the dish. Seems like garlic should work; curry powder definitely doesn't. I've added mushrooms this time around -- maybe I need more mushrooms. As for Italian seasoning, perhaps the way to go is with some single green herb rather than a mixture. I suppose anything you like with ham might be considered, but the main seasoning it seems to really need is plenty of black pepper. I haven't tried any radical vegetarian revisions, though olive oil would suggest itself as working with the cabbage. I suppose bacon flavor TVP would make it.

The quantities given are really starting points; this stuff can be made by eye and if you've an extra for dinner you can toss in a little more of everything. Four cups of cabbage is about half a cabbage head. Once the ingredients are prepped, this is a mix-and-heat recipe.