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Hahburq Steak

A dish of finely ground beef formed into patties, fried, and served with a brown gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,092 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Hahburq Steak

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the patties

  1. Grind or chop the beef very fine, removing all fiber and fat.

  2. Add onion juice, salt, pepper, nutmeg, and egg to the beef and mix well.

  3. Form the mixture into small balls and press them flat.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry the cakes in butter until browned.

  2. Make a brown gravy with the butter used for frying, then add a little soup stock.

  3. Pour the gravy over each cake 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. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Round of beef
Provides the main body of the patties; fine grinding gives a tender, even texture.
Egg
Binds the chopped meat so the patties hold their shape when pressed and fried.
Butter
Fries the cakes to a brown crust and forms the base of the gravy.

The step that matters

Fry the cakes in butter until browned. Browning occurs through the Maillard reaction at the surface, which gives flavour and colour. Frying over too low heat steams the patties instead, leaving them pale and soft.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, pepper, nutmeg, egg, butter):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pepper, nutmeg, egg, butter. 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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