Charlie Nagreen is credited with creating the hamburger in 1900. Seeing that his meatballs were not selling well, he flattened them into sandwiches which became very popular. The basic ingredients for an early hamburger included ground beef, breadcrumbs, egg, onion, and cheese cooked into patties and placed between bread with ketchup. The document provides instructions for making hamburgers by mixing the ingredients into patties and cooking them on each side of a frying pan until browned and cooked through, then melting cheese on top before assembling.