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Hamburg Steak En Casserole
I/2 pint (I cup) stock or water I heaping tablespoonful (I 1 tablespoonful chopped pars- 1 lb. Hamburg steak oz.) butter oz.) flour I chopped onion ley I heaping tablespoonful (I A few fried bread croûtons Salt and pepper Heat the butter in an earthenware dish, add the onion, fry it until brown, then add the flour, stir well together, add gradually the water or stock, and simmer for ten minutes. Add the Hamburg steak and cook slowly for half an hour; baste it occasionally. Season with the salt, pepper, and chopped parsley, and place on top just before serving a few nicely fried bread croûtons.
A plain braise of ground beef in onion gravy, cooked in the earthenware pot the book is built around. Nearly everything worth knowing is in the ingredient quantities, which are the part most in need of translation.
- What "casserole" means hereHere the casserole is the vessel, not the dish: an earthenware pot used directly over the flame, since the onion is fried in it before any liquid goes in. Modern glazed earthenware is usually oven-only. Use an enameled cast-iron or heavy stainless pan on the stovetop unless your pot is explicitly rated for direct heat, and use a diffuser if it is.
- Hamburg steakThis is seasoned ground beef, formed into one thick cake or several patties rather than crumbled. Chuck at around 20 percent fat holds together best through a half-hour simmer; very lean beef will go dry and grainy.
- The liquidHalf a pint is one cup, as the original notes. That is barely enough to cover a one-pound cake of beef in a wide pan, which is why basting is specified. A narrower pan and a lid reduce the need for it.
- Butter and flourA heaping tablespoonful of each is roughly one ounce, so about two tablespoons butter and a scant quarter cup flour. That is a heavy proportion of flour to one cup of liquid; expect a thick gravy, and loosen it with more stock if it tightens past pouring consistency.
- Brown the onion properlyThe whole colour and depth of the sauce comes from this step, since there is no searing of the meat. Take the onion well past translucent to a real brown before the flour goes in, then cook the flour a minute or two so the gravy does not taste raw.
- Cooking timeHalf an hour at a bare simmer will take a beef cake well past the 160F recommended for ground meat, and that is the point: this is a braise, not a rare steak. Keep it at a lazy bubble, since a hard boil will squeeze the patty tough.
- CroûtonsSmall cubes or triangles fried in butter until crisp. The recipe puts them on only just before serving; left to sit in the gravy they soften quickly.
- YieldOne pound of beef with gravy serves two generously or three modestly, with potatoes or bread to take up the sauce.
Hamburg steak reached English and American cookbooks in the late nineteenth century as a way of making chopped beef respectable at table, and by the 1900s it appears in household manuals as a plain, economical main dish rather than anything foreign or novel. What is characteristic here is the vessel: earthenware casserole cookery enjoyed a vogue in the early twentieth century, in which the same pot browns, simmers and goes to the table, saving both washing-up and the fuel wasted transferring food between dishes. The onion-and-flour gravy, made in the pot before the meat ever touches it, is the standard brown sauce of the period, and the fried croûtons are the one small flourish separating a family supper from a dish fit for company.