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Hamburg Steak

A ground steak patty cooked by frying and simmering in boiling water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Hamburg Steak

Why it works: Egg and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 106,462 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Hamburg Steak

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Chop the meat very fine.

  2. Add the salt and pepper to the meat.

  3. Beat the egg and mix it with the meat.

  4. Divide the mixture into four equal portions.

  5. Shape each portion into a round cake, about 1 inch thick.

  6. Dredge both sides of the cakes with flour.

Fry and simmer

  1. Fry the cakes in drippings, turning them to brown both sides.

  2. Add the boiling water to the cakes.

  3. Cover the pan closely and simmer for 45 minutes.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Pepper + eggtop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together50,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Round steak
Provides the main body of the cakes, which firm up as the meat cooks.
Egg
Binds the chopped meat so the cakes hold their shape.
Flour
Dries the surface of the cakes so they brown well when fried.

The step that matters

Covered simmer after frying. Once the boiling water is added and the pan is covered, the cakes cook gently in steam and liquid. Keeping the lid on and the heat low helps them stay moist and tender rather than drying out or toughening.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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