Name: Hamburg Steak in Casserole
Ingredients: 1 pound Hamburg steak; 1 onion, chopped fine; 1 teaspoon butter; 1 young carrot, grated; ½ cup tomatoes; Salt and pepper to taste; 1 dozen small onions; 2 tablespoons sherry wine

Why it works: Carrot and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,555 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Hamburg Steak in Casserole

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

Chop the Hamburg steak very fine and mix with the chopped onion to form a flat cake.
Heat the butter in a casserole until hot.
Add the grated carrot, tomatoes, salt, and pepper to the casserole.

Bake and serve

Place the meat in the sauce and add the small onions.
Bake for 30 minutes at 400°F (200°C).
Before serving, stir in the sherry wine and serve from the casserole.

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.

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.

Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,555 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Carrot + tomatotop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,606 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together21,601 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,923 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Hamburg steak: Forms the main body of the dish and provides the savory meat flavor as it cooks.
Onion: Adds sweetness and aroma as it softens and mellows during baking.
Grated carrot: Adds sweetness and moisture, softening into the sauce as it bakes.
Tomatoes: Provide acidity and liquid that form the sauce the meat bakes in.
Sherry wine: Adds a sharp, aromatic note that brightens the rich sauce when stirred in at the end.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, carrot, tomato, pepper, sherry, wine):

Capsicumfits better
Potatofits better
Spinachfits about as well
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, carrot, tomato, pepper, sherry, wine. 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.