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Hamburg Steak

A pan‑fried beef steak seasoned with salt and pepper, topped with butter and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Hamburg Steak

Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Hamburg Steak

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

  1. Scrape the pulp from the beef fiber.

  2. Season the beef with salt and pepper.

  3. Form the beef into a small steak.

Cook and serve

  1. Preheat a skillet until very hot.

  2. Broil or cook the steak in the skillet for 3 minutes.

  3. Top the steak with a small piece of butter.

  4. Garnish with parsley and serve hot.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  3. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  4. Beef + parsleytop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,866 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Beef + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,847 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Forms the main body of the steak and browns on its surface when seared.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and melts over the steak to add moisture and flavor.

The step that matters

Preheat a skillet until very hot. A very hot pan browns the surface of the beef through the Maillard reaction, which builds flavor and a crust. If the pan is not hot enough, the steak releases moisture and steams, turning grey and less flavorful.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Tarragonfits less well
  4. Sagefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pepper, butter. 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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