Hambagu (Hamburg Steak)

Variations

• Cheese-in hambagu: cheese wrapped inside the patty. Enclose it completely and seal the seam or it bursts out in the pan (dairy and heat).
• Oroshi (wafu) hambagu: grated daikon and spring onion on top with ponzu instead of a brown sauce. Much lighter, and common in summer.
• Demi-glace: restaurants generally use a long-cooked demi-glace. At home the pan sauce above is the realistic version, with ketchup and Worcestershire standing in for it.
• The meat ratio: 7 parts beef to 3 pork is standard. All beef tastes stronger but comes out dry; more pork is softer but buries the beef.
• Korea's hambak steak is this Japanese dish carried over, settled into the rice-soup-salad set of the old western-style diners.
• How it differs from a burger: a hamburger patty is handled as little as possible so the grain survives; hambagu is kneaded until tacky, for a springiness closer to sausage. Similar ingredients, opposite aims.
• The same mince elsewhere: menchi katsu crumbs and fries this mixture, meatloaf bakes it in one piece, kofte and mititei spice it and cook it over fire, and Swedish meatballs roll it and serve it in cream.
• The rest of yoshoku: omurice, napolitan, Japanese curry, tonkatsu.

Tips

• The kneading is the identity of the dish. A burger patty toughens if you work it; hambagu has to be worked with the salt for about three minutes until the myofibrillar proteins dissolve and it turns tacky. That tack is what holds the shape in the pan and gives the springy bite. When it starts clinging to your hand, it is there.
• Salt goes in first, before anything else. The proteins will not dissolve without it. Mix the onion and panko in first and they get between the meat and the salt, and the tack never develops (salt and seasoning).
• The onion must be completely cold. This is the commonest failure here. Warm onion melts the fat in the meat, the mixture goes slack, and in the pan the fat runs out and the shape collapses. Ten minutes in the freezer if you are in a hurry.
• Panko and milk are the juice trap. Meat alone contracts as its proteins tighten and pushes its juice out; panko soaked in milk absorbs and holds it, which is why hambagu is moister than a burger patty. Nothing else substitutes for that pair.
• Keep the mixture, your hands and the bowl cold. Fat that smears is fat that leaves in the pan. In summer, sit the bowl on ice and do not linger.
• Knock the air out. Throwing it hand to hand is not a mannerism. Air pockets expand in the heat and are exactly where the patty splits.
• Press the dent. The outside contracts first and pushes the centre up into a dome. The dent gives that swelling somewhere to go, so it cooks flat. The patty in the photograph is flat for the same reason.
• Two minutes untouched before turning. The crust forming in that time is half the flavour, and moving it about tears the surface before it sets (browning).
• Finish covered on a low heat. Two centimetres of mince cooked on high alone burns outside before the middle is done. A lid puts steam over the top and cooks it through (heat control).
• Check with a skewer. Clear juice from the centre means done; pink means another two minutes under the lid. Mince has to be cooked through (cooking meat and resting).
• Rest three minutes. Cut straight away and the juice you went to such trouble to trap runs onto the plate. Those three minutes are also when the sauce gets made.
• Make the sauce in the same pan. What is stuck to the base is the backbone of it. Wipe the pan out and all you have is ketchup and Worcestershire (building umami).
• The patties freeze. Shaped, wrapped individually and frozen they keep a month; thaw in the fridge and cook as normal. Cooked from frozen they burn outside (freezing and thawing).
• Serve it hot. Cooled, the fat sets and turns cloying. There is a reason it arrives in the cast-iron pan (serving temperature).