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Hamburg Beefsteak

A seasoned minced beef patty baked with butter and served with pan gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,092 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Hamburg Beefsteak

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 beef

  1. Remove all sinews from the minced beef.

  2. Season the beef with coarse sea salt and black pepper.

  3. Form the seasoned beef into cakes.

Bake and serve

  1. Place the cakes in a pan and pour butter over them to keep them moist.

  2. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven until cooked through.

  3. Use the drippings in the pan to make a gravy and serve.

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. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  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

Minced beef
Forms the main body of the steak, providing protein structure and savory meaty flavor.
Butter
Adds fat and moisture to the cakes as they bake, keeping them from drying out.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and moisture to the beef mixture.

The step that matters

Bake until cooked through. Ground beef can look done on the outside while the centre is still undercooked, so the cakes should be baked until fully cooked through. Checking the centre helps ensure food safety and a juicy, evenly textured result.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Potatofits about as well
  2. Onionthe original
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Tomatofits about as 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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