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Hamburger Steak

Ground beef and fat formed into patties, fried, then simmered in water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and onion 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 ↓

Hamburger Steak

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Cut the lean steak and fat into strips.

  2. Season with salt and pepper, and grind with a little onion if desired.

  3. Form the mixture into cakes less than 1 inch thick.

Fry and finish

  1. Heat a skillet with a little hot lard.

  2. Fry the cakes covered until brown.

  3. Turn the cakes and brown the other side.

  4. Remove the cakes to a hot platter.

  5. Pour off all but 2 tablespoons of fat.

  6. Add a little boiling water to the fat.

  7. Pour the water 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.

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. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Lean steak
Provides the main body of the patties and their meaty flavor.
Fat
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the cakes juicy as they cook.

The step that matters

Form the mixture into cakes less than 1 inch thick.. Thin cakes cook through and brown evenly on the outside before the interior dries out. Thicker cakes can stay raw inside while the surface over-browns.

“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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