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Hamburg Roast

A roast of finely chopped beefsteak, onions, egg, and crackers, baked and served with a gravy made from pan juices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Hamburg Roast

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the loaf

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a bowl, mix the chopped beefsteak, onions, egg, rolled crackers, butter, poultry seasoning, salt, and pepper until well combined.

  3. Shape the mixture into a roll and dust it with flour.

Bake and make the gravy

  1. Place the roll in a pan with just enough water to baste it while cooking.

  2. Bake for about 45 minutes.

  3. To make the gravy, combine the pan juices with 2 tablespoons of flour and a piece of butter, then season with celery salt, salt, and pepper to taste.

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.

  1. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Beefsteak
Forms the bulk of the roll and gives it a meaty, firm body when cooked.
Onions
Add moisture and sweetness as they cook down into the meat mixture.
Egg
Binds the chopped meat and onions so the roll holds its shape.
Rolled crackers
Absorb juices and add body, helping the roll stay moist and hold together.
Flour
Thickens the pan juices into a smooth gravy.

The step that matters

Shaping and basting the roll. The mixture is soft and held together only by egg and crumbs, so it can crumble if handled roughly. Keeping a little water in the pan helps create steam that keeps the roll moist while it bakes.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, pepper, flour, celery. 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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