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Hamburg Steak

A finely chopped beef patty seasoned with salt, pepper, and flour, broiled or fried and served with gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Hamburg Steak

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 ↓

Hamburg Steak

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

  1. Have the butcher chop the beef very fine.

  2. Press the beef into a flat steak about ¾ inch thick.

  3. Sprinkle the steak with salt, pepper, and flour.

Cook and serve

  1. Lay the steak in a fine wire broiler and broil like a beefsteak.

  2. Spread butter on the steak and serve on a hot dish.

  3. For small cakes, shape the beef into thin, flat cakes and fry in a pan with pork fat or butter to prevent sticking.

  4. To make gravy, thicken the juices in the pan, adding a little water before thickening, and pour it over the meat.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

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

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + porktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,933 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  5. Pepper + porktop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,121 recipes

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

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Round beef
Forms the body of the patty, providing the meaty texture and flavor of the dish.
Flour
Coats the surface and thickens the pan juices into gravy.
Butter
Adds richness and flavor, and helps prevent the cakes from sticking when fried.
Pork fat
Fat for frying that prevents sticking and adds savory flavor to the cakes.

The step that matters

Thickening the gravy. Flour needs to be cooked in the hot pan juices to thicken smoothly; adding water before thickening helps dilute the juices so the flour blends without lumps.

“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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