Skip to main content
Main

How to Cook Hamburg Steak

A seasoned steak loaf or meatballs cooked with bacon and served with a flour‑water gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Onion and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

How to Cook Hamburg Steak

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the meat

  1. Season the steak with salt, pepper, and a few drops of onion juice.

  2. Form the meat into a loaf 1.5 to 2 inches thick.

  3. Place thin slices of bacon on top and bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) until done.

  4. Form the seasoned meat into balls.

Fry and make the gravy

  1. Fry the meatballs in bacon fat until cooked through.

  2. Transfer the meatballs to a hot platter.

  3. In the remaining fat, mix 1 tablespoon of flour until smooth.

  4. Add 1 cup of hot water, bring to a boil, season with salt, and pour over the meatballs.

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

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

  2. Onion + flourtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together32,460 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Steak
Forms the main body of the dish, providing protein and a meaty texture when cooked.
Bacon
Adds fat and smoky flavor as it renders into the pan and over the top of the meat.
Flour
Thickens the bacon fat and water into a smooth gravy.

The step that matters

Forming the meatballs and frying them through. Meat that is shaped and then fried must be cooked all the way through, since the interior needs enough heat to become safe and tender. Frying in hot fat browns the surface and builds flavor, while overworking the meat can make it dense.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Arrowrootfits better
  2. Okrafits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, 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.

More hamburg steak recipes

Casserole 3 See all 46 →

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes