Hakkebøf (a Danish dish with a twist)

[Dennis]

This is a simple delicious danish dich, its ground beef fried in butter with boiled potatoes and caramalized onions, but ill give you an idea on ow to make it REALLY delicious and a bit untraditionaly, but is based on my huge hobby molecular gastronomy :blush:

First grind the beef yourself, take some of the part that was trimmed of the aged beef and mix it with some fresh meat that you want to grind (its partly by RRP´s idea about adding it and Heston Blumenthale version of a burger, but i havent tried it with the trimmings myself, but will when my beef gets ready, i have tried it with a mixed ground beef that contained aged ribeye and regular beef that was grouned)

The meat should be formed like a patty for a burger, maybe a bit thicker, season it with salt and pepper, then fry it in butter (butter that is lighty browned will add a nice nutty flavor, just make sure its not burned and it has to be REAL butter not any kind of substitute)

Potatoes, they will be fried instead of regular boiled potatoes, peel them and cut them into some finger thick slices, fry them in browned butter with a piece of garlic (i think you call it a clove,dont crush the garlic and leave the skin on, it has some amazing aroma) after a short frying put a lid on the pan and let them steam at low heat, when they are allmost done, take off the lid and turn up the heat to make them crisp.

The onions are the HUGE part of this dish, you need lots of onions cut into rings, at low heat in browned butter let them caramalize for a long time (i usualy spend 20-30 min on this if i have time) and light season them with salt and pepper, this is how we do it normally, now for the untraditionally twist add a tiny bit of sugar to help the caramalization, then add a little bit of star anis that is grinded into powder (for 4 medium size onions, you only need a few grams wich is barely enough to cover a finger nail, experiement with the amount and make sure it dont start to taste like liqurice)

Now the science part, when onions are caramelizing they release a substance that together with the star anis will create something called umami http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umami this is the fith taste that we can taste, and this flavor does 2 things 1. make low salt food taste of more. 2. enhance meat flavor and here we are deffenitly going for nr 2

This is a simply recipie, very easy, the explanations is long, because i wanted to tell why i do what i do during the recipie.

We allso say in Denmark that any dish can be saved by butter and bacon, so for another twist, wrap the side of the beef in some delicous smoked danish bacon

[Ron Pratt]

sounds delicious let alone a little artery clogging maybe? :laugh:

Thanks for the detail – I love caramelized onions on many sandwiches but I take a simpler approach by cooking them in EVOO. Once very tender I splash in Worcestershire sauce. That provides a nice transformation of the onions.

[Dennis]

Its not healty, but some of the butter with the beef and potatoes can be substituted with some olive oil (not the onions) but only little butter is needed, so its actually not that bad, but deffenitly not the healthies dish either

Allso as a side note, a boiled potato will suck more fat than a raw potato, thats why i dont pre boil them, and usually let them drip off on a kitchen towel, but still not a dish for weight watchers meal planner 😛

[Author]

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