Cabbage stuffed with meat is a classic combination, with variations all around the world. There’s Polish Gołąbki, cabbage rolls filled with meat and topped in tomato sauce. A Chinese version is stuffed with pork and mushrooms.
Early American versions involve stuffing the meat inside the cabbage, as The Townsends and Chef Walter Staib have both demonstrated on their shows.
The recipe may have been a little old-fashioned by 1953, but Mrs. Edwin Obrecht contributed hers to “Random Ruxton Recipes,” compiled by the Church of the Good Shepherd. The church boasted a well-to-do congregation, and almost all of the recipe contributors I’ve researched were prominent in Baltimore newspapers. The original is fairly rare. I accessed it at the Enoch Pratt Free Library. Another version of the cookbook was printed in 1977.
Mrs. Obrecht was born Doris Laura Merle in 1919. Her grandparents were German. Her father, Andrew Merle, was the president of a distillery firm. According to Merle’s 1965 obituary, he “spent the Prohibition years as a broker of medicinal spirits” and then launched his firm, Standard Distillers Products, Inc., when Prohibition was repealed.
Hamburgers are one of those foods that are possibly under-represented in cookbooks due to their sheer simplicity. Although recipes for “hamburgh sausage” or “hamburg steaks” appear in cookbooks dating as far back as 1758, most of the hamburger recipes in my Maryland cookbooks come from the 1950s and 1960s. It was a time when there was a little more experimenting going on in home kitchens, and these recipes tend to have some special touch or sauce.
“Queen Anne Goes to the Kitchen” (1962), the source for this recipe, also contains recipes for “Belmost Sauce” and “Aloha Sauce” for hamburgers. “Hamburgers Diane” is a twist on Steak Diane, a popular dish at the time which, according to Wikipedia, “was considered dated by 1980.” Steak Diane’s origin isn’t entirely clear but it is often attributed to Chef Beniamino Schiavon of the Drake Hotel in New York. Table-side flambé, as seen in this recipe, was a popular fad in the mid-20th century.
Washington College yearbook, 1959
One completely baffling aspect to this recipe was an instruction to salt the pan and heat until the salt turns brown. I’m pretty sure that salt does not brown? Maybe the salt used in 1962 had some different impurities? I honestly don’t know so I ignored that instruction.
These burgers would be fine on a bun (brioche perhaps? to keep it fancy…) but I already had the wild rice thing going so we went bun-less.
All in all it was a tasty burger, but that is always going to come down to the quality of the meat and how you salt and cook it… not some gimmicky sauce.
The recipe contributor, Lynette Morgan Nielsen was born Esther Lynette Morgan in Montreal, 1912. Her mother, Esther Judson appears to have come from money.
Dealth of Lynette Nielsen’s grandfather, 1910, Post-Standard (Syracuse, NY)
Lynette’s grandfather Edward Barker Judson, Jr., according to one obituary, “was one of the grand men of Syracuse.” He was “the son of a wealthy father and the inheritor of a large fortune from his uncle” and became president of First National Bank of Syracuse. At some point Lynette married Orsen N. Nielsen, a U.S. Diplomat. The two traveled the world as he served in Russia, Sweden, Germany, Ireland, Iran and Australia. Orsen Nielsen retired from the U.S. Foreign Service in 1952 and the family settled in Centreville.
There, Lynette served as a trustee of Washington College. An annual art prize was named in her honor. She contributed to Atkins Arboretum at Tuckahoe State Park, and a mental health services annex of Queen Anne’s County Health Department, which was named in her honor. She passed away in 1984.
Lynette’s well-traveled and philanthropic life is yet another example of the many citizens who contributed to “Queen Anne Goes to the Kitchen,” now a classic Maryland cookbook whose reputation has spread throughout the state.
Recipe:
1 Lb good beef, ground
2 Tablespoon freshly ground black pepper
2 Tablespoons cognac
chives or onion pieces
butter
Shape beef lightly into cakes, sprinkle with pepper and press pepper into cakes. Let stand 30 minutes. Sprinkle a light layer of salt over bottom of a heavy frying pan. Turn heat to high, and when pan is hot [or when “salt begins to brown” according to the recipe??] add hamburgers.
Cook until well browned on each side, reduce heat and cook until done to taste. Place a pat of butter on each burger, pour cognac over top and set ablaze.
Sprinkle cakes with chives or dried onions before serving.
Recipe adapted from “Queen Anne Goes to the Kitchen”
Now that the mystique of cream gravy is lifted for me this recipe looked like a nice lazy entry, plus it has “Maryland” in the name for some reason. I’m not sure why that is although the recipe note in Maryland’s Way says “Dried, smoked beef, such as found in the Lexington Market Baltimore, should be scalded in this manner to remove some of the salt. Packaged chipped beef need not be first scalded.”
I searched Lexington Market and found no such thing so I bought a can of Hormel – and THEN I found a package of Esskay so that is what I ultimately used.
Nonetheless, please view this magical artful photo of the Hormel product on Wikipedia.
“Chippedbeefpacking” Dpbsmith at English Wikipedia
As for Esskay, it was founded in 1858 and became known as Esskay due to a consolidation in 1919 – Schluderberg and Kurdle (S and K) . They closed their Baltimore plant in 1993 because “its structure was not be strong enough to support 10-ton ham-boiling machines the company was planning add to its operations”.
I remember hearing their jingles on the radio during Orioles games growing up but I couldn’t find those jingles, only this amusing/gross video.
The internet didn’t turn up a precise origin story about creamed-chipbeef but the recipe I used is attributed to “The Up-To-Date Cook Book”, a community cookbook for St. Johns, a Montgomery County church, dated 1897. In that book it is known simply as “frizzled beef” or “creamed dried beef.”
Some diner I went to once had on their menu “S.O.S.” with the description “you know what this is.”
And indeed I do… its been a lifelong favorite, even though as a child I mostly got it from a plastic package that one BOILED and then emptied onto toast.
There is really not much else to say but I will take this opportunity to get on my soap-box and implore the world to stop serving up sub-par cream gravies. Gelatinous, flavorless, perhaps from a powdered mix.. being served now at a diner near you. Why? What is sacred if we can’t enjoy the magical simplicity of cream gravy?
Recipe:
.5 Lb beef, dried
2 Tablespoon butter
1 Tablespoon flour
2 Cup milk
toast
Shred beef and place in a frying pan. Add butter and cook until slightly frizzled. Sprinkle over flour and stir well; add milk, stirring constantly. It will thicken quickly. Pepper and serve on hot toast.
PS I served it with some spinach because vitamins.
