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Hamburger Steak

A minced round steak patty seasoned with onion, salt, pepper, cooked in lard and butter, garnished with parsley and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Hamburger Steak

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the patties

  1. In a bowl, combine the minced round steak and minced onion.

  2. Season with salt and pepper, then shape into flat cakes the size of a biscuit.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat a frying pan over medium‑high heat and add lard and butter until hot.

  2. Fry the steak cakes until nicely browned on both sides.

  3. Garnish with parsley around the edge of the platter and place lemon slices on top.

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. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

  3. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  4. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  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

Round steak
Forms the main body of the patties and provides the meaty texture and savory flavor.
Onion
Adds moisture and aromatic sweetness that keeps the minced meat patties tender.
Lard
Conducts heat in the pan and helps the patties brown evenly on the surface.
Butter
Adds richness and aroma and promotes browning in the frying pan.

The step that matters

Fry the steak cakes until nicely browned on both sides. Searing over medium‑high heat browns the surface through the Maillard reaction, building flavor. Flipping only once after a good sear helps the patties hold their shape and stay juicy.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, butter, parsley, lemon. 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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