Skip to main content
Main

Hamburger Roast

A roast made from ground beef, bread, onion, salt, and pepper, baked in an oven.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Hamburger Roast

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Grind the beef and onion together.

  2. Soak the bread in cold water, then squeeze out the excess water.

Shape and bake

  1. Mix the ground meat, bread, salt, and pepper together.

  2. Form the mixture into rolls about 1½ inches in diameter.

  3. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 1 hour, basting with beef stock frequently.

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. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Beef + meattop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,533 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Beef + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef stew meat
Provides the main body and savory flavor of the roast.
Dry bread
Soaked and squeezed, it adds moisture and helps the roast hold a tender texture.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and moisture to the ground meat.

The step that matters

Squeezing the soaked bread. Excess water left in the bread dilutes the meat mixture and can make the rolls soggy and loose, while squeezing it out keeps the texture firm and well bound once baked.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, meat, bread, pepper. 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.

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesRoast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipesCorned BeefCorned Beef87 recipes