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Hamburg Steak

A ground meat patty coated in flour and fried, served with a tomato and butter sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Hamburg Steak

Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Hamburg Steak

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the patties

  1. Chop the meat finely and combine it with the bread crumbs, minced onion, and parsley.

  2. Season the mixture with salt, pepper, and nutmeg.

  3. Moisten the mixture with the beaten egg, then form into balls.

Fry the patties

  1. Coat the balls in flour and fry them in hot oil until golden brown.

Make the tomato sauce

  1. For the tomato sauce, cook the tomatoes, onion, and cloves for 10 minutes.

  2. In a frying pan, heat the butter and add the flour, stirring until smooth and brown.

  3. Stir in the cooked tomatoes and cook for another 10 minutes.

  4. Strain the sauce through a strainer 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.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Ground meat
Provides the main body of the patties and fat that keeps them juicy.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and help the patties hold together with a tender texture.
Egg
Binds the mixture so the balls keep their shape while cooking.
Tomatoes
Form the base of the sauce, adding acidity and body.
Butter and flour
Make a roux that thickens the tomato sauce.

The step that matters

Browning the flour in the butter. Flour cooked in butter must be stirred constantly until smooth and evenly colored; if it scorches or clumps, it gives a bitter taste and lumpy sauce.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, bread, parsley, pepper, nutmeg, egg, flour):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, bread, parsley, pepper, nutmeg, egg, flour. 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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