Salisbury Steak
Salisbury steak is a fancy name for hamburger patty, and of course there’s nothing wrong with frying a patty for dinner. Cheaper than steak and plenty tasty. So if you don’t want to get fancy like this recipe, just season a patty (using 85% lean beef) with garlic salt and pepper, fry it in the pan, and serve it with salad and vegetable and you have a perfectly good dinner.
But if you want to dress it up, maybe for company, here’s a good recipe. It is similar to my meatloaf recipe, but made and served differently. I saw one served over sautéed onions, and this one served on a crouton (toast) over a simple onion soup. Any of these options are OK. Use your imagination and let your taste buds be your guide.
Here I’ll tell you how I made a version of the one served over a simple French onion soup, as shown in the photo.
For four, buy about 1 1/2 pounds of ground beef, or hamburger, 85% lean (15% fat for math challenged chefs). Here’s the recipe for Salisbury Steak:
INGREDIENTS
Meat mixture:
1 1/2 pounds of ground beef
1/4 cup chopped onion
2 garlic cloves, minced (or 2 teaspoons prepared minced garlic)
1 egg
2 tablespoons bread crumbs
1/2 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoon A1 Sauce
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1/4 teaspoon (or more) Tabasco
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
Soup:
1 medium onion, sliced
1 teaspoon sugar
1/4 cup wine, preferably red
2 cups chicken broth
2 or 3 slices of Swiss cheese, torn into pieces
grated Parmesan cheese
INSTRUCTIONS
Mix the meat mixture ingredients together and make four or five oval patties, not too fat — they will get plumper as they cook. Fry them in a skillet for about three minutes per side. That’s done enough; they will cook more later. Remove the patties to a plate and use the skillet for the next step.
For the soup, put the onions in the skillet, sprinkle with the sugar, and sauté for 20 minutes, stirring once in a while. Don’t bother them too often or the onion won’t get a chance to brown. You want the onions to get pretty brown, with sticky stuff clinging to the pan.
While this is going on, make some slices of French bread (one per hamburger patty), about the size shown in the photo. Heat the oven to 400 degrees, and get the cheeses ready:
Put the Swiss cheese slices on the French bread, sprinkle with Parmesan, and put in the oven on a cookie sheet. These will take 20-30 minutes to get brown and bubbly, so keep an eye on them while you finish the dinner.
After the onions are brown, add the wine to the pan to deglaze it and scrape the goodies off the bottom of the pan. Add the chicken broth and bring up to a simmer. Lay the patties back in the pan, cover, and let simmer until the toast is ready, or about 15 minutes.
At serving time, ladle some soup in a bowl, lay a crouton on the soup, and place a patty on the crouton. Garnish with Parmesan cheese and cilantro or parsley.
This is real comfort food. If it’s raining, make a fire in the fireplace and open an extra bottle of wine.