Meals · Skillet & sheet-pan mains
Hakkebøf med bløde løg (Danish beef patties with soft onions)
Danish comfort on a plate: thick beef patties with a dark, salty crust under a heap of onions cooked slowly until soft and sweet, with a proper brown pan gravy, boiled potatoes and something pickled on the side. Lean mince keeps it hearty; the onions do the rest.
- Time
- 55 min (15 prep + 40 cook)
- Servings
- 4
- Per serving
- 539 kcal
- Protein
- 40 g
Ingredients
Patties
- 1 lb 5 oz ground beef (95% lean), lean minced beef, about 5 % fat
- 1 1/4 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp black pepper
Soft onions
- 6 medium onions, halved and thinly sliced
- 1 1/2 tbsp butter, divided
- 1/2 tsp granulated sugar
Brown gravy
- 2 1/2 tbsp all-purpose flour (bleached), plain flour
- scant 2 cups beef broth
- 2 tbsp cooking cream, 15% fat
To serve
- 1 3/4 lb potato, peeled
- 1/2 cup sliced pickled cucumber
- 1 cup sliced pickled beetroot, drained
- 2 tbsp chopped fresh parsley
Steps
- Put the potatoes in cold salted water, bring to a boil and simmer for 15–20 minutes until tender. Drain and keep them warm in the pot.
- Divide the mince into four and shape thick, loose patties with a shallow dent in the middle, handling the meat as little as you can. Season with salt and pepper just before frying.
- Melt half the butter in a large frying pan over medium heat. Add the onions and sugar and cook for 15–20 minutes, stirring often, until soft and golden. Tip them onto a plate.
- Raise the heat to medium-high, melt the rest of the butter and fry the patties for 3–4 minutes a side until deep brown and cooked through (160°F). Don't crowd the pan, or they will steam instead of browning. Lift them onto the plate with the onions.
- Lower the heat to medium, sprinkle the flour into the pan and stir for a minute, scraping up the browned bits. Whisk in the stock a little at a time and simmer for 3–4 minutes, then stir in the cream. Return the patties and onions to warm through for 2 minutes.
- Taste the gravy for salt and pepper. Serve the patties with the onions piled on top, potatoes, gravy, pickled cucumber, beetroot and parsley. Leftover patties keep 4 days in the gravy in the fridge.
Good to know
Can I use ordinary mince?
Yes. Mince with 8–12 % fat, which is what most Danes buy, gives a juicier patty: a score of about 55 instead of 61.
How do I get a dark gravy?
Let the patties leave a good dark crust on the pan and scrape all of it up when the stock goes in. A few drops of gravy browning or soy sauce deepen the colour if you want it darker.
Alternative
Per
- Calories
- 94
- Protein
- (30%)
- 7 g
- Fat
- (24%)
- 2 g
- Carbohydrates
- (46%)
- 11 g
- of which sugar
- 3 g
- Fiber
- 1 g
- Sodium
- 243 mg
More meals
Computed from the ingredients with our published formula, not yet kitchen-tested. How
As written, 2155 kcal goes into the pot and 2779 g of ingredients comes out as about 2300 g of food: 94 kcal per 100 g. Cooking moves water and energy density is the score's biggest lever, so the dish is scored as cooked, not as an average of its parts. Every ingredient links to its food page, with the same data and score. The label's percentages are each macronutrient's share of the calories. The full formula.