Hamburg steak is a patty of ground beef. Made popular worldwide by migrating Germans, it became a mainstream dish around the start of the 19th century. It is related to Salisbury steaks, which also use ground beef. It is considered the origin of the ubiquitous hamburger, when, in the early 20th century, vendors began selling the Hamburg steak as a sandwich between bread.
History
The German equivalent of the Hamburg steak is the Frikadelle, also known as a Frikadelle or Bulette, which is known to have existed in the 17th century.
In the late 19th century, the Hamburg steak became popular on the menus of many restaurants in the port of New York. This kind of fillet was beef ground by hand, lightly salted, often smoked, and usually served raw in a dish along with onions and bread crumbs. The oldest document that refers to the Hamburg steak in English is a Delmonico's Restaurant menu from 1873 that offered customers an 11-cent plate of Hamburg steak that had been developed by American chef Charles Ranhofer (1836–1899). This price was high for the time, twice the price of a simple fillet of beef steak. By...