Growing up with the Standard American Diet (otherwise known as SAD), I became accustomed to certain tastes. One of my favorite random meals was Salisbury steak TV dinners – something about that squishy meat and savory broth really hit the spot for me. So I decided to re-create this dish, but instead of squishy, breadcrumb-filled beef, I used some of the best ground beef I’ve ever tasted – US Wellness Meats’ 75% lean ground beef (by the way, their 25lb. bulk pack is on sale until 10PM CST on Saturday, March 3rd!). It tasted just as good as it looks.
Interestingly enough, Salisbury steak was first developed in the late 19th century by Dr. J H Salisbury as a low-carb, weight-loss dish. Similar dishes are popular worldwide, especially in Japan (hanbāgu steak) and Russian (котлета).
You’ll Need:
1 lb US Wellness Meats 75% lean ground beef
1 egg
1/2 cup almond meal
1 tsp black pepper
1/2 tsp each salt, ground mustard, and onion powder
5oz (1/2 package) sliced white mushrooms
2 cups beef broth/stock
1 tbsp heavy cream
2 tsp potato starch
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Combine the ground beef, egg, almond meal, salt, half of the pepper, mustard, and onion powder in a mixing bowl. Mix everything together with your hands until everything is nice and blended, being careful not to over-mix.
Form the meat into three large steak-shaped patties, like you see above, and place on a baking sheet. These steaks are so naturally (and awesomely) fatty that you don’t need to worry about greasing the baking sheet. Place in the oven for 25 minutes.
While the steaks are cooking, add the broth, mushrooms, and the other half of the pepper to a small pot. Bring to a simmer on medium heat.
Once simmering, reduce the heat and med/low and let it simmer for about 20 minutes, until the mushrooms shrink a bit.
Add 1 tbsp heavy cream, allowing the broth to return to a simmer. Add a little water to the potato starch, and mix it together. Stir this mixture into the broth, and continue stirring until it thickens. Add salt and pepper to taste.
After the steaks have baked for 25 minutes, broil them for an additional 2 minutes to give them a nice crusty look. Take them out of the oven, and scrape off the gunk on top. It’s okay, they’re supposed to look a little gross at this point.
Plate the steaks and pour the gravy on top of them, and serve immediately. This dish goes especially well with mashed potatoes.
Those mushrooms look divine! There’s just something about a rich gravy that just begs for mashed potatoes.
I need to replenish my beef stock soon! I haven’t been able to find affordable beef bones around here though–my grocery store crazily charges an arm and a leg for them!
Thanks Alex! Beef bones are like gold – hard to find but worth the search!
Don’t you have a Mennonite or Amish farmer near by that you can go to? Even if it’s a ride, you should be able to do that once or twice a month. I get beef bones every couple of weeks when I get my raw milk. I have almost stopped shopping in supermarkets and buy pretty much all of my food from farm markets all year round. Or if you don’t know any check with your local Weston A Price chapter (westonaprice.org) and ask the leader in the group to help you find one — maybe her group has a farm share.
Suzzane, I definitely buy my meat/bones from local farmers when available, since PA is only 45 minutes from where we live. Alex might have more trouble since she’s up in Toronto :)
This looks amazing!!!!!!!! I definitely want to make it – thanks for the pictures and the easy-to-follow recipe.
I just made this recipe for lunch in my new Mario Batali cast iron cookware – very happy with the perfomance of the pot and the end result. I will definitely do it again!
I also tried your smoked/roasted chicken with lemon and dill – it was just divine. I dont think i will go back to cooking it any other way!
Thank you again and keep up the good work – it’s highly appreciated!
Ira
Thanks Ira! You just made my day :)
Making this tonight with mashed cauliflower!
Great, good luck! If you get a chance, please take a picture and put it up on my FB wall, I’d love to see it! :)
Looks delicious – thanks for sharing.
Thank you!
Do you have a suggestion/substitution for the potato starch, don’t have it on hand for the moment. Thanks!
You could use arrowroot starch, or corn starch if you don’t restrict corn. You could also use a little gelatin, although the consistency might be a little weird. Otherwise, you could make a roux using potato flour or rice flour, like in this post: http://thedomesticman.com/2011/01/18/lets-make-some-gravy/
Hope that helps! I would definitely suggest picking up some potato starch the next time you’re at the market, it’s a great thickener (although it loses its thickening properties after the dish cools).
I’ve never been able to get over the trauma of school cafeteria Salisbury Steak. Decades later and I’m still unable to bring myself to try one that isn’t cardboard and sludge.
Very Tasty… I did a couple of modifications… I sauteed half of a thinly sliced onion until it was good and carmalized, then started the gravy with that. You just can’t have Salisbury steak without the onions! Then I added the patties to the gray for about the last 5 minutes of simmering, along with all the yummy gunk I scraped off the baking sheet :) I’ll have to say, my wife and I are new to the paleo thing- I can’t believe what a great binder the almond flour is for ground meat dishes, it really holds together and it really seems to trap moisture in! We made some Lamb curry meatballs the other day using Almond flour, and OMG!!! They were to die for!
I was going to make a pound of the hamburger mixture up and then cook one burger at a time as I need them (I generally have a bunless burger nearly everyday for lunch….yeah, I’m REALLY tired of it). I usually cook the burger on the stovetop. Would that be fine for this recipie or does some sort of magic happen in the oven? :-)
Thanks!
Eric, stovetop is fine! No magic involved, I just like using the oven because I can then focus my attention on making the gravy at the same time :)
Thanks Russ. One last question. Can we substitue a TB of butter in place of the heavy cream? I don’t usually have much cream around and don’t want to buy a whole thing if I’m just using 1 TB.
Eric, the cream isn’t wholly necessary, it just adds a touch of creaminess to the gravy. It also makes it look a lot tastier too! :) You could probably add a little butter, maybe a little less than a tbsp, and get a similar effect.
Russ, can I use Tapioca starch in place of the potato starch? I ask because I have a whole bag of the Tapioca Starch already.
Thank you! – Mary
Mary, you can use it (you’ll probably need less tapioca starch than potato starch), but I’ve read that tapioca starch can sometimes give a slimy texture to gravies, so use at your own risk! :)
I’m surely going to try this! Looks easy and delicious! However, what would you suggest subbing the potato starch with? I rarely come across recipes with this ingredient and I’d prefer not to buy a whole package, use 2 tbsp and leave the rest there until forever :D. Thanks so much!!
Lan, depending on your dietary restrictions you could use any starch – arrowroot, tapioca, corn, etc. Hopefully you have one of those lying around the house – if not, I would go for tapioca starch, there are a ton of awesome recipes you can make with it, including the grain-free pizza recipe that I posted on Thursday :)
Seriously yum.
Made this tonight, it was super yum!! You need to have printable versions of the recipes, I wanna keep this one around for awhile :-p
Hey Whitney, glad you liked it. I started making printable versions of my recipes earlier this year, but it was after I published this one. I keep meaning to go back and make PDFs for all my recipes, I’ll get to it, promise!
Very good – thank you!
I made this tonight, and it turned out great! Thanks! :)
Unfortunately, with it being the first week in January, my store was all out of almond flour, so I put a few almonds in my processor. I thought it was ground well enough, but it ended up being pretty chunky in the steak. Definitely tracking down some almond FLOUR before making again. Haha. :)
Cindy, I’m glad you liked it. If you can find it, I prefer almond meal over flour (some manufacturers label it as the same thing, but almond meal is less finely ground than almond meal) because it helps the steak be a little spongier. If you have a Trader Joe’s near you, they have some of the best almond meal for your $$.
This was a huge hit tonight, thank you! We used arrowroot and sautéed the mushrooms with garlic, then added the stock and simmered. Another go to for ground beef :-)
Sweet, thanks for sharing Jen!