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Hahburq Steak

Steak patties made from finely ground beef, seasoned, 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 cakes

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

  2. Mix in onion juice, salt, pepper, nutmeg, and egg.

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

  4. Fry the cakes in butter until golden brown.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. Make a brown gravy with the leftover butter, letting it brown, then add a little soup stock.

  2. 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

Beef
Forms the main body of the cakes, giving them a meaty texture and rich flavor.
Egg
Binds the ground beef so the cakes hold their shape when pressed and fried.
Butter
Fries the cakes to a golden brown crust and also browns the gravy.

The step that matters

Grinding the beef very fine and removing fiber and fat. Fine grinding gives the cakes a tender, cohesive texture, while removing fat and fiber keeps them from becoming tough or greasy when shaped and fried.

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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