Chef’s hot hamburger steak makes an impression on Pleasant Meadow residents

‘It was a huge hit when it was served’

When submitting a recipe for OMNI Health Care’s inaugural March Madness recipe challenge, Pleasant Meadow Manor chef Connie Doherty turned to an old-time classic that proved to be a big hit when served to the Norwood long-term care home’s residents.

The “hot hamburger” she served is a hamburger steak plated with two sides – mashed potatoes and a vegetable medley – and covered with a special onion-mushroom gravy.

To make this resident-favourite meal, Connie mixes ground beef, eggs, bread crumbs, ground black pepper, garlic powder, onion powder and Worcestershire sauce.

She then divides the meat mixture evenly into burger patties which are then placed on a tray and put in the oven and cooked to an internal temperature of 71 C (160 F).

Connie then makes a sauce for the meat by sauteing thinly sliced onions and mushrooms in vegetable oil and mixing in brown gravy to finish.

“It was a huge hit when it was served,” Connie says of the hot hamburger steak.

Chris Weber, OMNI’s operations manager of nutrition and food service, says the March Madness contest, which saw 16 recipes compete in a bracket contest where votes were cast each week between April 14 and May 6, was close.

The winning entry was a Mediterranean omelette, created by Josephine Goddard at Country Terrace, which won “by a very thin margin,” Chris says.

OMNI launched the first annual March Madness recipe challenge in March in recognition of Nutrition Month in Canada.

Chris came up with the idea to encourage nutritional care managers and cooks to showcase their most-loved recipes and to highlight the high-quality meals served in OMNI homes.

Throughout March, nutritional care managers and cooks prepared their favourite meals, plated them and took photos that were sent to head office. The photos were accompanied by the name of each meal and its recipe.

If you have a story you would like to share with The OMNIway, please contact the newsroom at deron(at)axiomnews.com.

If you have feedback on this story, please call the newsroom at deron(at)axiomnews.com.