We grew up with this as meatballs served with gravy, rice, mash, pumpkin, cabbage Colcannon, peas and buttered gem squashes. See Gran’s recipe at the bottom of this page.

Warning !! Never add gravy powder to mushroom sauce if you are going to be making it up with a mushroom gravy – The two just DON’T mix !! – You either have it with gravy or with mushroom sauce but NEVER mix the gravy powder into your mushroom sauce!

A lovely plain brown onion gravy can be made up from leftover roasted meat sediments and fats ie; left over from grilled chicken the previous night to which you add some onions to fry up in the leftover meat fats and sediments and once done a stock cube stirred into it together with a little water and some gravy powder following instructions on package. All mixed to desired consistency adding water.

Very nice, plain but tasty homestyle cooking. If not serving with carrots, you may add some grated carrot to your hamburger / meatballs. Same recipe may be used to make hamburgers. In this case don’t add the grated carrot. May also serve without the mushrooms like my mom did & make up a gravy with your gravy powder and beef stock cubes. May also omit stock cubes and replace with a packet of mushroom soup powder. If you do, do not forget to deduct the weight of your soup powder from the weight of your flour, as they both acts as thickeners. If you run out of breadcrumbs you may use oats instead.

Salisbury Steak with Mushroom Gravy

Prep time 10 mins Cook time 30 mins Total time 40 mins

Serves: 3-4

Ingredients: (For the Salisbury steaks)

1 lb. ground beef
½ cup finely diced onion
¼ cup dried bread crumbs – or melba toast put through food processor
1 egg, lightly beaten
1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
3 tbsp fresh parsley, minced
1 tbsp dried shallot and roasted garlic
(or 1 garlic clove & 1 shallot clove, minced)
½ tsp freshly cracked pepper
½ tsp kosher salt
1 tbsp butter, for pan frying

For the mushroom gravy:

1 tbsp. butter
8 oz. sliced mushrooms
2 shallots, thinly sliced
1 tbsp. fresh thyme leaves, minced
2 tbsp. flour
1½ – 2 cups beef broth
salt & freshly cracked pepper

Method: (For the Salisbury steak)

Combine ingredients and form into 3-4 oval shaped patties. Melt 1 tbsp. butter in a large skillet, sauté patties 4-5 minutes per side over medium heat until nicely browned. Remove from pan and reserve.

For the mushroom gravy:

Add 1 tbsp butter, sliced mushrooms, and shallots and sauté for 4-5 minutes. Add the fresh thyme and cook an additional minute. Dust mixture with flour and cook for 1-2 minutes. The mixture will be thick. Gradually stir in beef broth ½ cup at a time, allowing mixture to come to a boil in between each addition. Add more broth until desired thickness is achieved. Season with salt and pepper.
Return steak patties to gravy, reduce heat to low, and allow to braise until patties are cooked through.
Serve over mashed potatoes with fresh parsley to garnish.

Original Source: Thank you to Lemony Thyme!

*********************************

Gran’s Meatballs The Beetham Family way:

She usually served this with mash, rice, a brown onion gravy made up with 2-3 beef stock cubes and gravy powder together with a vegetable side dish of mashed cabbage, onions & potato seasoned with some salt & white or black pepper known in South Africa as “cabbage bredie” or Irish Colcannon She never served her’s with carrots but with well drained mashed pumpkin, peas and buttered gems in their shells, which all went very well together. Something we had a lot growing up as kids.

Ingredients:

250g lean Topside Beef Mince

1 (1 cm slice in thickness) bread, grated together with crust

1 egg, large

1 carrot, medium (grated)

1/2 a celery stalk, grated

Oregano (Origanum) to taste

Spice for Mince (Quite a bit she sais)

Maggie Fondor (Aromat Seasoning-plain) A sprinkling

Parsley, freshly chopped

1 garlic clove, small (My dad didn’t like garlic but she slipped it in anyway)

1 onion, medium (grated) or put through a food processor with metal blade on

Method:

Mix all ingredients together. Form into meatballs and dust or roll in flour to

coat. Refrigerate to set and chill.

Bring to room temperature before shallow frying on low temperature in about

a cm of oil or you may use a mixture of half butter to oil.

*******************************************************

The Perfect Mashed Potatoes:

Use 400 – 500 g of peeled potatoes in weight per serving.

The key to the fluffiest mashed potato begins with using the right potatoes, keeping them as dry as possible while they cook (steaming is best!) and using the best tool for the job.. A ricer of course! You may use a sieve or a colander if you don’t have one.

Once peeled, cut potatoes in half & leave in pretty big chunks.

Have a steamer basket set over about 2 inches of boiling water or if using microwave, 1cm. Arrange potatoes in a single layer so that they cook at a uniform rate.

These amounts of ingredients will probably take anything from 20 – 25 minutes to steam.

Use a russet or Idaho potatoes. In South Africa they are the very large fat round ugly dirty skinned potato, which also have the highest starch content making them the perfect potato to use. With a thongs place your softened steamed potatoes into the center of the ricer which is called the hopper of the ricer, filling it about 2/3rds of the way & all you do is you press down, kind of like a citrus press & the wonderful steamed potatoes are going to rice out of the bottom and the sides of the round holes of the ricer. If you don’t have one, use your colander or sieve pressing them through one by on with the back of a tablespoon and continue as below.

An easier quicker way of making mashed potatoes with an electric beater:

Beat only until smooth. No further or you will get gooey potatoes.

Add NO salt whatsoever to your potatoes or they will NOT soften up! Season

only once they are fluffy & soft. Beaters shear through the potatoes and starch

granules & they create very gloppy gooey mashed potatoes so the secret is to

stop right before it can happen. Melt butter in milk and add your seasonings to

the heated milk & butter mixture and just swirl it around to dissolve the salt &

pepper into the liquid or you may steep any flavourings you like in your milk

like rosemary, garlic or any aromatics you wish to add to your mashed

potatoes. Don’t forget to add some freshly grated nutmeg, some salt and white

or black pepper and to give it that extra bit of fluff you may wish to add a

pinch or two of baking powder.

Tips: You may mash the potatoes with potato masher or pastry cutter to get all the lumps out (If you don’t have electric beater) and only then may you add the hot milk and butter.

Adding warm milk to your potatoes will keep them hot much longer and will give better texture.

Enjoy!

__________________________________________________________

For further reading..

Origins of Salisbury Steaks (Beef Mince), Meatballs or Hamburger Patties

James Henry Salisbury, M.D. (12 January 1823 – 23 September 1905) was a 19th-century American physician, and the inventor of the Salisbury steak. Salisbury was born in Scott, New York, in 1823. He earned a Bachelor of Natural Sciences degree from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1844. He joined the New York Geological Survey as an assistant chemist, was promoted in 1849 to principal chemist, and remained in this position until 1852. He earned his medical degree from Albany Medical College in 1850, and a Master’s degree from Schenectady College in 1852. Salisbury served as a physician during the American Civil War, and became convinced that diarrhea suffered by the troops could be controlled with a diet of coffee and lean chopped beefsteak. Salisbury was one of the earliest health food faddists and taught that diet was the main determinant of health. He believed vegetables and starchy foods produced poisonous substances in the digestive system which were responsible for heart disease, tumors, mental illness and tuberculosis. He believed that human dentition demonstrated that humans were meant to eat meat, and sought to limit vegetables, fruit, starches, and fats to one-third of the diet. The Salisbury steak, his means of achieving this goal, is ground beef flavored with onion and seasoning and then deep-fried or boiled, and was introduced in 1888. Salisbury believed that beef was excellent defense against many different physical problems. He suggested that Salisbury steak should be eaten three times a day, with lots of water to cleanse the digestive system. He was an early American proponent of a low-carbohydrate diet for weight loss, and he promoted his diet for that purpose. Salisbury steak — essentially a hamburger — might have faded from the collective memory if World War I had not inspired a drive in English-speaking nations to rename German-sounding things. Salisbury steak became a popular substitute for the (bunless) hamburger. He wrote the book The Relation of Alimentation and Disease. He died at his country home in Dobbs Ferry, New York and was buried at Lake View Cemetery in Cleveland, Ohio.

Salisbury Steaks with Mushroom Gravy or Meatballs and Brown Onion Gravy or Hamburger Patties. Just like Gran made and Perfect Mashed Potatoes!