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Emergency Steaks: From
a Time of High Beef Prices
With
beef prices seriously rising, I recently retried a recipe I used to make for my
family when I was an early teenager. “Emergency Steak” was developed during
World War II by the Betty Crocker team at the General Mills Corporation as a
way of stretching the rationed, limited food available during wartime. The
Betty Crocker Cookbook was published a few years after the war, and was my
first personally owned cookbook. It contained the wartime recipe, which must
have been where I learned it. It became one of “my” dishes served often to the
family.
It
turns out I had combined elements of two historic ground-meat dishes, Emergency
Steaks and Salisbury Steaks. My recipe, which I still call “Emergency Steaks,”
reflects that hybrid style. I made the steaks round rather than in the single
T-bone steak shape of the original recipe. I wrote up the fuller story for an
article in Boom Magazine, where I have a regular food column (see
Boomathens.com, and scroll down to the “Readers Write” section to find my food
articles.
Here
is my recipe for Emergency Steaks as I’ve reconstructed and updated it from
recall. As during my childhood, the “steaks” go well with mashed potatoes
(seasoned grits work, too) and a green vegetable. Salad completes a nice,
fairly nostalgic, supper meal. Nowadays, I’d have a glass of red wine with it.
1 cup
Wheaties cereal
1/4
cup yogurt plus 1/4 cup milk
Half
of a pack (4 1/2 teaspoons) Lipton’s Instant Onion Soup mix
1/2
teaspoon salt
1/4
teaspoon black pepper
1
pound ground beef chuck (85% lean)
Place
Wheaties in mixing bowl. Lightly crush them (for example with the bottom of the
measuring cup). Add remaining ingredients and mix well with your fingers.
Apply
bakers’ spray or oil to a flat pan with edges. Shape meat mixture into 4 round
patties (or one t-bone steak shape for historic interest). Make the meat evenly
3/4-inch thick.
Heat
broiler.
