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Baked Hamburg Steak

Ground round steak mixed with kidney suet, formed into a patty, baked, served with butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Baked Hamburg Steak

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 the meat

  1. Remove all fat, tendons, and gristle from the round steak.

  2. Pass the steak through a meat grinder.

  3. Grind the kidney suet and mix it with the ground steak.

Shape and bake

  1. Shape the mixture into a square mound and season with salt and pepper.

  2. Dredge the mound with flour.

  3. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until cooked to your preference.

Serve

  1. Serve with butter, pouring off any excess grease.

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

Flour and butter 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

Round steak
Provides the lean beef that forms the body and savory flavor of the patty.
Kidney suet
Adds fat that keeps the mound moist and tender as it bakes.
Flour
Dries the surface so the outside can brown during baking.

The step that matters

Bake until cooked to your preference. Ground meat cooks through quickly and can dry out if overbaked, while underbaking leaves it unsafe. Checking doneness with a thermometer helps the mound stay juicy and safely cooked.

“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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