Home › The Waldorf Kitchen › Fried Minced Beefsteak
Fried Minced Beefsteak
Cut from the flank the desired amount of meat with a little fat with it, season well with salt and pepper, and pour over a little water. Press this mince into a tin, and cut into slices, which place in a fryingpan with butter and fry until quite done and well browned; then place on a dish, pour over rich gravy, and serve.
A plain hotel-kitchen chopped steak from the era before the hamburger had a bun. The technique is worth reading closely: the meat is bound with water, pressed into a pan, and cut into slabs rather than shaped by hand.
- "Mince" means grindRun the flank through a meat grinder on a coarse plate, or ask a butcher to grind it. Flank is lean, so the "little fat with it" is not optional — aim for roughly 15 to 20 percent fat by weight, adding beef fat or a fattier trim if the flank is very lean.
- The waterAn ounce or two of cold water per pound loosens the mince and keeps a lean grind from frying dry. It is the same logic behind the splash of ice water in a modern chopped steak; add it cold and mix only until it disappears.
- Pressing into a tinAny straight-sided pan lined with parchment or plastic film works. Pack the mince about three quarters of an inch deep, chill it firm for an hour, turn it out, and cut squares or rectangles. Chilling is what makes clean slices possible.
- "Fry until quite done"Ground beef needs 160F throughout, not the medium-rare you would give a whole steak — grinding distributes surface bacteria through the interior. Six to eight minutes total over medium-high heat for slices of this thickness.
- Butter alone will scorchAt the browning heat these slices want, plain butter darkens past the point of pleasure. Use half butter and half a neutral oil, or clarified butter, and do not crowd the pan.
- "Rich gravy"Oscar assumed a stockpot in the background. Deglaze the pan with a half cup of beef stock, whisk in a teaspoon of flour cooked in the fat first, and finish with a knob of butter. A jus lié rather than a thick brown sauce.
- YieldThe recipe leaves the quantity open ("the desired amount of meat"). As a working guide, about a pound and a half of flank will give four generous slices. Serve with a starch that will take the gravy -- mashed potato, or fried potatoes.
Oscar Tschirky was not a cook by trade — he was the maître d'hôtel — but the 1896 book that carries his name gathered the working repertoire of a great American hotel kitchen, and much of it is unglamorous food for the ordinary side of the menu. Minced beefsteak of this kind was standard hotel and chophouse fare on both sides of the Atlantic in the 1890s, arriving under names like Hamburg steak, Salisbury steak and beefsteak à la Hambourgeoise, all of them predating the sandwich that eventually swallowed the idea. What makes the entry period-specific is the flank: mechanical meat grinders are generally said to have become cheap kitchen equipment by around this period, and a large kitchen could suddenly turn tough, sinewy, inexpensive cuts into something that could be sold as steak. Pressing the mince into a tin and slicing it, rather than patting out individual cakes, is a service kitchen's answer to portion control.