A 35 second TikTok from @cookinginthemidwest opens on a cast iron skillet full of dark patties under a thick, tan gravy flecked with parsley. “On tonight’s episode of Easy One Pan Meals,” the cook says in the voiceover, then names the dish: hamburger steaks with a creamy mushroom gravy. The rest of the clip walks through how everything comes together in one pan.
The first step is the meat. His caption calls for two pounds of ground beef formed into six patties of about a third of a pound each, seasoned on both sides with a store bought burger seasoning. On screen the raw patties sit on a baking mat with the seasoning showing as red flecks, and then they go into a hot skillet. “Cook them for about five minutes on each side before you remove them from the pan and set them to the side,” he says. The frames show a deep brown crust on the finished patties.
Next come the mushrooms. He sets the patties aside, leaves about a tablespoon of grease in the pan and adds sliced mushrooms, which turn golden at the edges. Then garlic goes in, a pat of butter and the flour, stirred and cooked for about a minute so the flour loses its raw taste. In the voiceover he lists “mushrooms, garlic, flour, and butter” and moves on quickly.
The gravy is the center of the dish, and the caption gives the amounts. It uses half a cup of beef broth, a cup of heavy cream, grated Parmesan and a mix of salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion powder and smoked paprika. The frames show the cream being poured over the mushrooms and the pan turning pale and glossy as it simmers. “Let that come to a simmer, and once it thickens up, add your hamburgers back in,” he says.
The patties return to the skillet and get pressed lightly into the sauce, with a hand reaching in to nudge one down. He covers them with gravy and lets them sit for a few minutes on low heat. The finish is dried parsley, and then the steaks are lifted onto a platter over a bed of mashed potatoes. “Serve it over mashed potatoes, egg noodles, or rice,” he says. The platter shot shows the stacked patties glazed in gravy with soft dinner rolls waiting in the background.
Ground beef deserves a note on doneness. His caption says to fry the burgers until fully cooked at 165 degrees, while the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service says on its ground beef page to cook ground beef to 160 degrees Fahrenheit as measured with a food thermometer. Five minutes a side is only a guide, since patty thickness and pan heat vary, so check with a thermometer rather than by color. The same page says to refrigerate cooked ground beef within two hours, or within one hour when it is above 90 degrees, and that leftovers keep for about three or four days in the refrigerator.
Two choices in the video are easy to borrow. The patties are browned first and set aside, so the pan keeps the browned bits for the gravy, and the gravy is built in the same skillet, which means one pan to wash. He also says egg noodles or rice work in place of potatoes, so the same sauce can cover whatever starch is already in the kitchen.
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