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Bento Friday

Classic Hambagu

·583 words
Protein Beef Pork 洋食 (Yoshoku)

Classic Hambagu
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Are you a fan of meatloaf but regret that it comes in a whole loaf? Well, have I got a food for you. The classic Japanese hambagu is a mix of ground meats, onion, bread crumbs, and spices. There are many recipes but I’ve pretty much come up with my own that I do over and over. There are a variety of sauces that can be made for it, Japanese style, meat loaf style, demi-glace, etc., but for this bento, I went with the one from Just One Cookbook. As a bonus, definitely read her steps for making the hambagu, has some important tips/

Ingredients
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  • 1 lb of ground beef
  • 0.5 lb of ground pork
  • 1 yellow or vidalia onion
  • 1-2 tbsp of soy sauce
  • a dash of nutmeg (or more if you prefer)
  • Aprox. 1 cup of panko breadcrumbs (I eyeball this and adjust as I go)
  • 1-2 tbsp of cooking oil of your choice (I use ghee, lard, or olive oil)
  • 1-3 tbsp of chicken stock for steaming

Steps
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  1. Finely dice up the onion. If you’re sensitive to onions (like me), feel free to cheat and use an onion dicer.
  2. Heat up your oil in the pan and sautee onion until cooked and tender, 5-15 minutes.
  3. Let the onion cool down. You can do this in the pan but it is easier (and usually better) to do it in a large mixing bowl.
  4. Once the onion has cooled completely, add the beef, pork, and nutmeg to the bowl.
  5. Using your hands, mix the ingredients together until they’re in a lump, you don’t want to overmix yet.
  6. Add soy sauce and mix a bit more.
  7. Add your panko and begin really mixing with your hands.
  8. Mix until well mixed. You don’t want it to be a paste but you don’t want it to still look like ground meat. The colours of the meat should blend together and you shouldn’t see any individual breadcrumbs.
  9. Weigh out your mix if you have a scale and then divide it into your desired number of servings. This recipe makes 4-6 hambagu.
  10. Mix each divided portion into a patty/ball. Toss/slam it from one hand into your other with a decent amount of force. It should sound like a slap. This is important to get the air out. Do this a few times for each hambagu. This also is a bonus as it helps shape the patty. Repeat for each portion.
  11. Take the hambagu and put them on a plate or in a container and place in your fridge. I like to let them set in the fridge for about an hour to firm back up.
  12. Heat oil up in your pan over medium to medium-high heat.
  13. Put each of the hambagu into the pan but make sure they don’t touch. You may have to do them in batches.
  14. Let the hambagu sear in the pan for about 3-4 minutes, until you get some nice browning on the it. Flip and repeat for the other side.
  15. Add in your stock, cover the pan, and reduce the heat to low or medium-low and let the hambagu steam for 5-8 minutes.
  16. After steaming, I like to flip once or twice more giving another 2-3 minutes total.
  17. Remove the hambagu from the pan and proceed to either make a sauce using what is left in the pain or make/get whatever sauce you’ll use.
  18. Plate the hambagu and pour as much sauce as you want over it.