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Hamburg Steak

Ground beef patty seasoned with onion, pepper, salt, flour, and egg, then pan‑fried and served with a stock sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Norton, Caroline Trask · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Hamburg Steak

Why it works: Onion and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Hamburg Steak

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

  1. Use one pound of beef from the round or the ends of steak and grind or chop very finely.

  2. Add 1 tablespoon of onion and 1 teaspoon of pepper.

  3. Add 1 beaten egg.

  4. Add 1 teaspoon of salt.

  5. Form into flat cakes, dredge with flour, and sauté in a little hot butter or drippings. Brown well on both sides.

  6. Remove to a hot platter.

Make the gravy

  1. Stir into the hot fat left in the frying pan one tablespoon of flour.

  2. When browned, stir slowly into it one cup of stock or hot water.

  3. Season to taste with pepper and salt and add a few mushrooms or peas, or cooked carrot cubes.

  4. Heat through and pour around the steaks.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

583Calories
21 gProtein
7 gFat
107 gCarbs

Counts 5 of 6 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 5 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Onion1 medium (110g)44
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Cakenot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Norton, Caroline Trask. 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. See the original page.

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. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Onion + flourtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together32,460 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

Flour and egg 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

Beef (in the method)
Forms the body of the patties and provides the meaty flavor when browned.
Egg
Binds the ground meat so the cakes hold their shape while cooking.
Flour
Coats the cakes for browning and thickens the pan drippings into gravy.
Stock
Liquid that dissolves the browned pan bits and forms the body of the gravy.

The step that matters

Brown the cakes well on both sides. Browning through the flour coating builds flavor and a crust through the Maillard reaction. Pale cakes taste flat, and the browned bits left in the pan are what give the gravy its depth.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, flour, egg):

  1. Spinachfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, flour, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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