No, there’s no actual steak….it’s basically a burger with no bun but plenty of gravy. Doesn’t matter to me, though, it tastes really good and that’s what I want from my food. Flavour!

This is a comfort meal component for me. It’s a hot meal on a chilly evening. It’s simple ingredients. It’s inexpensive ingredients. It doesn’t take long to make (assuming you remember to take the ground beef out of the freezer early enough to have it actually thaw before it’s time to cook).

Ingredients:

• 1 lb ground beef
• 2 TB Worcestershire sauce
• ground pepper (to taste)
• seasoning salt (to taste)
• 1 TB mustard (I used yellow because I couldn’t find the Dijon)
• 3 TB flour
• 3 TB olive oil
• 1 onion
• 2 cups broth
• 1-2 tsp Better than Bouillon beef flavour or an appropriate amount of beef bouillon

Mix the ground beef, Worcestershire sauce, salt and pepper together, gently but thoroughly. You don’t want to over mix or the beef will get tough.

Heat a frying pan up with the olive oil.

While it’s heating, separate the beef mixture into 4 fairly even amounts and shape into round or oval patties. These don’t have to be as firmly put together as a burger would be as they are not going onto a grill. It would be nice if they are together enough to survive being flipped in the pan, though.

When the oil in the pan shimmers, carefully add your patties (away from you) and let them brown on one side. Once browned, flip.

Slice up the onion, however you like it, and add it to the pan. When I next flipped my patties, I slipped the onion pieces under each patty, giving them direct heat – if you do this, keep an eye on them so they don’t burn.

Once the onions have softened up, take them and the patties, which should be cooked by now, out of the pan, leaving the cooking juices and the remainder of the oil behind.

Sprinkle in the flour and whisk well to combine. Add the broth, a little at a time, to keep lumps from occurring. Once you are at the consistency of gravy that you like, stop adding broth. Taste for seasoning. Add the bouillon if it needs it. If you like the flavour as is, don’t add anything.

Add the patties and onions back into the pan, smother with the gravy, then dish it out. This just cries out for mashed potatoes but toast or a baked potato would do the job. A nice thick piece of garlic Texas toast would be amazing. Perhaps not the most diet conscious thing to eat, but really comforting, nonetheless.