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Hamburg Steak, Russian Sauce

A ground beef patty seasoned with shallot, eggs, spices, breaded and fried, served with Russian sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,019 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Hamburg Steak, Russian Sauce

six balls
Oven, in the book's wordsA rather moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the patties

  1. Remove all fat from the beef and chop it finely.

  2. In a bowl, combine the beef, shallot, eggs, salt, pepper, and nutmeg. Mix well.

  3. Form the mixture into six flat balls, the size of small fillets.

  4. Roll the balls in fresh bread crumbs.

Cook and serve

  1. Fry the balls in a pan with clarified butter for 2 minutes on each side, turning frequently to keep them rare.

  2. Serve with Russian sauce or any desired sauce.

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. Shallot + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,019 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

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

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

  5. Shallot + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,898 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

Lean beef
Provides the main body of the patties, with fat removed for a cleaner, firmer texture.
Eggs
Bind the chopped beef together so the patties hold their shape while cooking.
Fresh bread crumbs
Coat the patties, adding a light crust that helps brown during frying.
Clarified butter
Fries the patties with a rich flavor and browns their surface without burning.

The step that matters

Frying the patties briefly and turning them often. The patties are meant to be served rare, so short frying time and frequent turning help heat the surface and crust while keeping the centre pink. Cooking too long dries the meat and toughens it.

Swap the shallot

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

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Shallotthe original
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Spinachfits about as well

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