Skip to main content
Main

Hamburg Loaf

A ground beef loaf with bacon and tomato gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Pepper and thyme are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,585 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Hamburg Loaf

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 loaf

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

  2. In a large bowl, mix together the ground beef, chopped onion, cracker crumbs, salt, pepper, and thyme.

  3. Shape the mixture into a round loaf and place it in a baking pan.

  4. Dredge the top of the loaf with flour and lay the bacon slices on top.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake for 45 minutes.

  2. For the gravy, prepare brown gravy and stir in the strained tomato juice and chili powder.

  3. Once the loaf is done, transfer it to a platter and pour the gravy over it before 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. Pepper + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

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

  2. Thyme + tomatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,370 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Onion + thymetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,171 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 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

Ground beef
Forms the bulk of the loaf and gives it its meaty flavor and structure.
Cracker crumbs
Absorb juices and help the loaf hold its shape while keeping it tender.
Onion
Adds moisture and savory sweetness as it softens during baking.
Bacon
Renders fat over the top of the loaf, adding richness and browning.
Strained tomato juice
Adds acidity and body to the gravy, balancing the richness of the beef.

The step that matters

Shaping the loaf before baking. Ground meat mixtures should be shaped gently and evenly so the loaf cooks through at a uniform rate. Overworking the mixture makes it dense and tough, and an uneven shape can leave parts underdone or dry.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Okrafits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pepper, thyme, flour, tomato. 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

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesRoast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipesCream of Tomato SoupCream of Tomato Soup107 recipes