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Hamberger Steak

A patty made from equal parts beef, veal, and pork seasoned with pepper, salt, thyme, nutmeg, lemon, eggs, and bread crumbs, baked until cooked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,973 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Hamberger 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

  1. Combine the chopped beef, veal, and pork in a bowl.

  2. Season with pepper, coarse sea salt, thyme, nutmeg, grated lemon peel, lemon juice, eggs, and bread crumbs.

  3. Shape the mixture into oblong forms.

  4. Coat each piece thickly with flour.

Bake

  1. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C), basting often until cooked through.

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. Thyme + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,973 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Thyme + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,907 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Beef, veal, and pork
Provide the meat base, with fat and protein that give the patties their savory body.
Eggs
Bind the mixture so the patties hold their shape while cooking.
Bread crumbs
Absorb juices and add moisture, keeping the patties tender rather than dense.
Flour
Coats the outside, helping the surface brown and form a crust.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich meat flavor.

The step that matters

Bake until cooked through, basting often. Ground meat mixtures can dry out in the oven while the centre cooks. Frequent basting keeps the surface moist and helps the patties stay juicy until fully cooked.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, veal, pork, pepper, thyme, lemon, egg):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Sagefits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, veal, pork, pepper, thyme, lemon, egg. 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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