Japanese "Hamburg steak"
Many Japanese kids love this dish and of course I did too. When I was small, I was always super happy when my mom cooked this for our dinner at home, And I still love it! This dish is hard to translate to English since I haven’t seen the same dish in US except at Japanese restaurants. This is something like a burger without buns, or meatloaf. It’s a burger patty shape with sauce on top. This dish is a mixture of Western and Japanese culture. Today I’m going to show you how to cook Japanese hamburg steak.
I think there are roughly 2 types of hamburg steak. One is soft and fluffy, the other is a bit more dense and meaty. Both use almost the same ingredients but I’m going to cook the latter one, dense and meaty. but still very juicy. The key is how much you mix the meat and the cooking temperature. The side dish, sauteed green beans and asparagus recipe follows.
Hamburg steak
Ingredients (Servings 3-4) (The pictures are for a double portion)
Ground beef (not too lean) 1 lb
Ground pork (not too lean) 5 oz (150g)
(I used 2/3 of regular ground pork and 1/3 of roughly chopped pork for better texture but you can use ground pork only)
Salt 2 teaspoons
Bread crumbs 1 oz (30g)
Egg 1
Onion 1/2
Butter (Unsalted) 1/2 Tablespoon
Salt a pinch
Canola oil or vegetable oil for cooking hamburger 1 Tablespoon
Sauce for the hamburg
Red wine 200cc
Worcestershire sauce 3 Tablespoons
Ketchup 2 Tablespoons
Directions
Chop onion into small pieces. (See how to chop in the pictures above)
In a pan, cook the onion with butter and a pinch of salt, over medium heat, for about 5-10 minutes. Once the onion becomes tender and starts to caramelize, set aside and let cool.
In a large bowl, combine ground beef, ground pork, 2 teaspoons of salt, bread crumbs, egg and sauteed onion.
All the ingredients should be kept cold. Mix all together with your fingers as quickly as possible. There is no need to mix a lot. Just until all the ingredients are equally mixed.
Divide the meat into 4-6 portions. Make each portion into a ball shape.
Like catching a baseball, pound the meat ball hard from one side of your hand to another. Remove the air inside of the meat. Repeat this a couple of times. This prevents the hamburg from breaking while cooking.
Shape the meat so it becomes flat and round. If you have time, cover and chill in the fridge for a while. This step keeps the juiciness inside of the hamburg.
In a large pan, add oil and turn the heat to medium-low. (I used beef fat from other dishes, but you can use canola oil). If you cook with high heat, the protein of the meat will shrink and the juice comes out from the meat and makes the hamburg dry.
Cook for 5 minutes and then flip.
Cover with aluminium foil loosely and cook another 5 minutes. If you use a regular lid, the temperature inside of the pan will go up too high and the meat juice comes out, so I cover with aluminium foil instead.
Flip again, reduce the heat a little lower and cook 3 minutes with the foil cover.
Flip again, cook another 3 minutes with foil cover.
Remove meat out from the pan and rest with the foil cover.
While the meat is resting, make the sauce.
From the pan that you used for cooking the hamburg, remove the excess oil and any brown bits.
Bring the heat to high, add red wine, Japanese worcestershire sauce (you can use American worcestershire sauce but it will taste different) and ketchup.
Keep mixing and cook down until the sauce thickened.
Place hamburg on a plate and pour over sauce.
I bought a huge chunk of pork and used some for curry. There still was some meat left so I used an old mincer from my grandma-in-law, manually cranking by hand and made ground pork. I didn’t live in that era but felt like I was cooking in a old days. Fun!
Sauteed green onion and sauteed asparagus
How to cook green beans
Rinse green beans with water. Drain.
In a large pot, bring water to boil and add salt.
Add green beans and cook for 2.5 minutes.
Drain water and let it cool in a colander.
Cut off the stems and cut the beans in half.
In a pan, add butter and green beans and cook with medium heat for 1 minute. Sprinkle salt and mix. Turn off the heat.
How to cook asparagus
Using a peeler, peel asparagus half way from the bottom.
Cut into 3 pieces.
Heat pan with medium heat and add butter and asparagus.
Saute for 2-3 minutes. Serve.