With parsnips and cabbage to be used up, this oven baked spicy parsnip bubble & squeak was the answer. I did consider making little individual bubble & squeak “cakes”, but then decided to just make a bubble & squeak loaf, which I can slice – mostly to avoid the extra work that involves, to be honest. This will freeze nicely too, so I don’t have to eat it all in one go!
I’d already microwave cooked the parsnips and cabbage and had them boxed up in the fridge to use up, so the weights I used were “what I had”, rather than being specific/neat weights of ingredients 🙂
There are a few more ingredients than I usually use in a recipe, but I had them in the kitchen already.
A lot of these ingredients can be considered “optional”, so you can just make a simple parsnip & cabbage bubble & squeak if that’s all you’ve got! It’s very flexible.
I oven baked this bubble & squeak in my toaster oven in a foil lined enamel pie dish.
Ingredients:
- 400 grams of cooked parsnip – I microwaved the parsnip in 3-4 minutes
- 150 grams of cooked cabbage – I had microwaved the cabbage already.
- peas – half a mugful, defrosted frozen peas
- ½ teaspoon cumin
- ½ teaspoon onion granules
- ½ teaspoon chilli powder
- ½ teaspoon pepper flakes
- 1 green chilli (I like it hot)
- a knob of butter
- seasoning of your choice, to taste
Method:
- Chop up, or mash, the cooked parsnip and cabbage into small pieces, add to the peas.
- Add the spices and knob of butter and mash everything together. Add any seasoning (salt and pepper) you like. How smooth or rustic/lumpy you leave it will be a personal preference.
- Line a baking tin and spray it with oil.
- Spoon the spicy parsnip and cabbage mix into the dish. For a solid parsnip bubble & squeak “cake” press the mix down, or leave it loose if you prefer a mountain of crispy food.
- Bake in the oven at 180°C / 170°C fan or toaster oven for 25-30 minutes, until it looks the colour you like it to be.
Once cooked, you can serve immediately, or leave it to cool; bubble & squeak can be kept in an airtight container in the fridge and used within 2-3 days, or frozen whole or in slices!
Cooled, Sliced and Frozen:
Once my bubble & squeak had cooled, I tipped it out and sliced it, then wrapped each slice in foil and popped them in the freezer.
To reheat, I can defrost one in the fridge overnight, then bake in the foil the next day, or remove it from the foil and microwave it in 1-2 minutes on high power in a microwave safe dish. It can be microwaved from frozen, I’d remove it from the foil and put it into a microwave safe dish, then microwave for 2-3 minutes and check it’s hot all the way through. When reheating food like this there’s no “danger”, it’s just a question of being hot enough to serve and all you’re needing to do is make sure you don’t get surprised by a cold bit in the middle 🙂
Serving Parsnip Bubble & Squeak
This is a flexible dish, which you can eat as the main part of a meal, by serving a pile of this as a baked vegetarian dish, but here’s how I usually serve it:
- With a poached egg and a pile of baked beans
- Serve a portion as a side dish to any meat based meal or Sunday roast!
- Use as a pie topping instead of a standard potato topping, to add extra “interest” and flavour. This is great as a pulled beef brisket based pie topping when I’ve cooked Slow Cooked Pulled Beef Brisket, or just served alongside it!
This is a good winter warmer, when parsnips are readily available and can be bought cheaply, so a nice frugal belly filler!