What We’re Cooking This Week: Hamburger Steak and Gravy

Wellspent Market founder Jim Dixon has been writing about food and restaurants for Willamette Week for a long time. He wants our readers to eat well, and he shows them how with the recipes he creates just for us by using simple cooking techniques and easy-to-find ingredients.

Americans eat 50 billion hamburgers every year, but nobody eats hamburger steak anymore. Well, almost nobody. The simple patty of ground beef, sans bun but usually served with gravy and mashed potatoes, still appears on the menus of old-school diners and small-town cafes. It’s the kind of dish a trad wife might cook. But hamburger steaks are tasty, affordable and easy, and if you like beef, you should be cooking them.

Before the hamburger became the edible symbol of American food, its name meant a person from Germany’s northern port city, Hamburg. The cosmopolitan Hamburgers adopted foods introduced through the port’s bustling trade, including the Russian love of ground beef, and a simple patty of the stuff came to be called a Hamburg steak. They brought it to America during the last big wave of German immigration in the late 1800s, around the same time beef production here doubled. Over the next few decades the Hamburg steak slowly evolved into the hamburger.

Making the “steak” itself is fairly simple. While many versions include onions, bread crumbs and egg, those additions only distract from the flavor of the beef. But it’s important to start with good ground beef, preferably from a butcher counter that grinds the meat daily. Here in Portland that means New Seasons, Whole Foods, or a dedicated butcher shop like Gartner’s or Revel Meat. And you may find local ground beef at area farmers markets.

While it’s not absolutely necessary, I like to use what nerdy meat cooks call the reverse sear. The hamburgers get cooked gently over low heat for a few minutes, then dropped onto a very hot dry skillet to get that tasty crust on the exterior. The gravy requires more effort. To really caramelize onions takes at least an hour, and 90 minutes is even better. You want to cook the onions beyond recognition; the end result should look like a slightly chunky brown slurry.

Mashed potatoes are the hamburger steak’s go-to carbohydrate vehicle, but I think rice is better, and it makes the finished plate a bit like Louisiana-style rice and gravy, especially with a few shakes of Crystal hot sauce.

Recipe

• 2 medium onions, chopped
• 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• 1 pound ground beef, preferably 20% fat
• Kosher-style sea salt
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 2 cups beef stock (I use Better Than Bouillon beef concentrate mixed with hot water.)
• 1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
• 2 teaspoons soy sauce
• 1 teaspoon black pepper
• ¼ cup cream

In a heavy skillet over medium low heat, cook the onions in the olive oil until they’re very dark and no longer recognizable, 60–90 minutes. Stir regularly, and if the onions start to scorch add a quarter cup or so of water. You may need to add water several times over the course of cooking.

Trying to handle the ground beef as little as possible; divide it into 4 portions and gently shape each one into a patty about 2 inches across and ¾ inch thick. Sprinkle with salt and set aside or refrigerate until the onions are ready.

When the onions are completely caramelized, add the butter and cook until it melts, then stir in the flour and let cook for another few minutes. Add the beef stock, Worcestershire and soy sauces, stir well, and let simmer gently for about 10 minutes to thicken. Stir in the cream and cook for another few minutes. Remove from the heat and set aside.

Place the hamburgers in a cold skillet and set over medium low heat. Flip them after about 4 minutes and cook for another 3 minutes, then transfer to a plate. Use a flexible spatula to scrape all of the beef juices and fat into the gravy.

Heat the skillet used for the hamburgers until a droplet of water bounces off, then add the hamburgers and cook them for 30–40 seconds on each side to get a nice crust. Serve the hamburger steaks on a plate with rice and the onion gravy and Crystal hot sauce.