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Hamburger Steak

A meat patty made from beef, pork, bread, onions, and seasonings, baked and served with a thickened sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and pork match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,690 recipes. Both carry 12-methyltridecanal, which smells tallowy, beefy. The science ↓

Hamburger Steak

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 meat

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

  2. In a large pan, mix the chopped beef and pork well.

  3. Add the soaked or roasted bread, chopped onions, pepper, and salt; mix thoroughly.

  4. Form the mixture into cakes and place them in a pan.

Bake and make the sauce

  1. Bake for 30 minutes, turning once during baking.

  2. After frying the steak, add 1 gallon of water to the pan and strain.

  3. Boil the strained liquid for 5 minutes, season with pepper, salt, and catsup, and thicken with flour.

  4. Pour the sauce over the hamburger steak when serving.

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 + porktop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,690 recipes

    Shared aroma: 12-methyltridecanal (tallowy, beefy).

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

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

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

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

  4. Pork + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Chopped beef
Provides the main meaty body and savory flavor of the patties.
Chopped pork
Adds fat and moisture, keeping the patties tender as they cook.
Bread
Soaks up moisture and fat, helping the patties stay soft and juicy.
Chopped onions
Add moisture and aromatic sweetness that deepens the flavor.
Flour
Thickens the pan liquid into a smooth, body-rich sauce.

The step that matters

Turning the cakes during baking. Turning once lets both faces brown and cook evenly, so the centre is cooked through without the outside drying out.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Tomatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

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