Eating good-old ground beef isn’t something we do very often anymore. Just because it’s higher in fat, I guess. I grew up eating beef – ground, chopped, roasts, stews, liver – often. My Dad didn’t like chicken, turkey or lamb. So we ate a lot of beef and pork. When we’d go out to dinner my mother and I would frequently order chicken. We also ate almost no fish. Back then (this was in the late 1940’s and 50’s) you couldn’t buy fresh fish in the markets. It’s hard to believe, but it’s true. Tuna was available in cans, and shrimp, I think. And here, I grew up in San Diego which has a very large Portuguese population – many of them were deep sea fishermen by trade. But they caught tuna – for canning. That was it. Then. How things have changed!

The story of my dad’s chicken aversion is a sad but interesting one. Growing up, my dad was in charge of the farm chickens. It was part of his chores, to clean out the coop, gather the eggs, feed them, water them, etc. And he kind of got attached to the young rooster. His name was Sammy. My dad thought Sammy was very bright, as chickens go. And Sammy would come to my dad whenever he went into the coop. Anyway, my dad was about 10-11 years old at the time, his parents were helping out a man who needed work. If he’d do some chores around the barn, he could eat dinner with the family at the end of the day. The man had finished his chores and came to the house and asked the missus (my dad’s mother, Bessie) if there was anything else he could do. She said yes, go get one of the chickens and kill it, remove the innards, the feathers, etc. and she’d be fixing it for dinner. So, the worker went out to the chicken coop and killed and dressed a chicken. The family sat down to dinner and everybody was marveling at the delicious chicken. The day worker said, “you know, it was the funniest thing, when I went into the coop, this chicken just came right up to me, so I just killed him then and there!” My dad started to gag. Uh, yes, the worker had killed my dad’s pet rooster, Sammy. And from that day on, my dad could barely eat chicken. As a kid, the thought that he’d already swallowed some of Sammy’s flesh was abhorent. Bessie felt terrible about what had happened – she’d forgotten to tell the man not to kill the young rooster! Even telling that story in his 70’s, my dad would get teary. So, from that day forward whenever chicken was served, if it was all there was, my dad might eat a bite, but that was it. It just wouldn’t go down. And my mother never served chicken unless my dad was away on a business trip.

Well, there, another bit of trivia about my family. So, back to ground beef. I think I’ve mentioned it here before that during the 1960’s and 70’s, when I was a young woman, a housewife, ground beef was a real weekly staple. I made ground beef casseroles by the dozens. When I was young, my mother used to make tamale pie every couple of weeks. My dad particularly loved that. And a half a pound of ground beef could feed our family for at least two dinners.

This recipe is one I found in Sunset magazine, back in the 1970’s, based on the age of the lined paper I typed it on. Over the years I’ve changed it just a little bit – some different proportions of things, but the basic recipe hasn’t changed much, so all the credit goes to the magazine. It’s the onions that make this. Unfortunately, you can’t make this dinner in 30 minutes, quite. The onions alone take 20-25 all by themselves.

First you slice up the onions. The recipe calls for one onion apiece, which is about right. You sauté them in some oil and butter and set them aside. You form normal ½-inch thick beef burgers, dip them in some flour, then you sauté the burgers in the same pan – you want them to still be pink in the middle if possible. Once they’re done, you remove them and cook up the sauce (a bit of cream and Worcestershire sauce). You pile the onions on the burger and drizzle some of the sauce on top. My DH just about licked the plate. That’s always a good sign. I hadn’t made this in probably 25 or more years. They’re really quite easy. So if you’re tired of chicken, and enjoy ground beef in many guises, this might be a new version for you.

Danish Ground Steak with Onions
Recipe: Originally from a Sunset magazine article, from the 1970’s.
Servings: 4
BURGERS:
1 1/4 pounds lean ground beef
Salt and pepper to taste
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 teaspoons unsalted butter
ONIONS:
4 small yellow onions — thinly sliced
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 teaspoons butter
1 teaspoon salt
SAUCE:
1/2 cup heavy cream
2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
2 tablespoons Italian parsley — for garnish
1. In a large (10-inch) frying pan set over medium heat, melt the butter and add oil. Sauté the onions, stirring occasionally, until onions are limp and beginning to brown (about 20-25 minutes). Stir in the salt about halfway through the cooking process. Transfer the onions to a bowl and keep in a warm place (low oven).
2. Shape the ground beef patties (with salt and pepper added) into 4 equal portions, about 1/2 inch thick. Dust them with flour and shake off any excess. In the same frying pan add more oil and butter and sauté the patties over medium-high heat until they are well-browned, about 4-5 minutes per side. Transfer the meat to a heated platter and keep in a low oven until ready to serve.
3. Pour off any fat remaining in the pan. Put it back over medium heat and add the cream and Worcestershire sauce. Using a spatula, stir around, scraping up any of the brown bits in the pan until the sauce has darkened a bit and thickened slightly.
4. Serve meat on individual plates, spoon the onions over the top and scrape some of the sauce over the onions. Garnish with parsley.
Per Serving: 644 Calories; 51g Fat (72.0% calories from fat); 28g Protein; 17g Carbohydrate; 2g Dietary Fiber; 158mg Cholesterol; 691mg Sodium.
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