Is This Recipe a Keeper? Smothered Hamburg Patties

Did you hear a squeal of delight emanating from Los Angeles the other day?  It was me.  I checked my mailbox and there was a big envelope with my name on it from my former-student-turned-friend Erica (as an aside, I already told my higher ups at the graduate university that if anything happens to me, Erica could probably step into my place teaching the workshops without even skipping a beat…but I digress).

I greedily tore open the envelope and beheld the 1939 Heinz Recipe Book (with War Supplement).  I thought I’d died on gone to heaven (except that I had a ton of homework waiting for me to finish so I knew that I was still on earth.

The Mister told me last week that his favorite food is a hamburger.  So, I eagerly looked for a recipe that I could try that would fall into the hamburger category and I found “Smothered Hamburg Patties.”  One thing I’ve noticed in the vintage cookbooks is that hamburgers 60-70-80 years ago were very different than what we call hamburgers.  There were rarely any buns and they were often called “chopped sirloin patties” or some variation of that.

Note: I’m giving the original recipe that serves 8 but I cut the recipe in half when I made it because there are only two of us…

Smothered Hamburg Patties (from Heinz Recipe Book, 1939)

Combine bread crumbs, butter, ground round, salt and pepper:

Measure bread crumbs into a medium mixing bowl.

Add melted butter to the bread crumbs

Mix the bread crumbs and melted butter together, then add the ground sirloin, salt and pepper.

Form into 8 flat cakes, then surround each with a slice of bacon.

Shape into patties

Wrap bacon around the edge, securing with lots of toothpicks

Dip patties in flour and brown in small amount of fat.

Dip in flour

Brown in a small amount of fat.

Add soup.

Brown on both sides and then add soup.

Cover tightly.  Bake in a moderate oven (375º F.) 30 to 40 minutes.  Pour off excess fat and thicken gravy if necessary.  Arrange patties on heated platter, then pour gravy over top and garnish with parsley.  (Serves Eight)

Cover tightly and bake at 375º F. for 30 to 40 minutes.

Remove the toothpicks. I served it with mashed potatoes, a cabbage salad, and the remnants of a nectarine.

Verdict:

The Mister: “Pretty darn good!  A little salty….but pretty darn good!”

If Heinz still makes soup, it isn’t available at my local grocery store.  I used onion soup because the vegetable soups had high fructose corn syrup in them (and we’re trying to avoid HFCS).  The downside was that the soup made it a bit saltier than we like…not oppressively so, but just a bit saltier than we normally eat our food.  The next time I make this, I will probably eliminate the canned soup and just caramelize my own onions with a bit of garlic and add some low sodium beef or vegetable broth.  I will then pour that over the patties before baking.

For waist watchers, this isn’t exactly a low calorie food, coming in at 8 points using Weight Watcher’s E-tools’ recipe builder.  That said, the patties could be made A LOT smaller and still be satisfying.  I was surprised by how large and filling these patties were.

Is this recipe a keeper? YES!