Recipes Finder: How It Works
Recipe search works best when you search by what you have rather than what you want. Searching an ingredient you need to use up is a far more useful query than searching a dish name, and it is how most cooking decisions actually get made.
Searching by ingredient
The practical question is usually 'I have chicken thighs, half a cabbage and some rice — now what?' Ingredient-led search answers that directly, and it is also the single most effective habit for reducing food waste, which for most households runs at a fifth to a third of what is bought.
Search for the ingredient that will spoil first. Leafy greens, herbs and soft fruit set the agenda; store-cupboard items can wait.
Reading a recipe before you start
- Read it through completely. Not the ingredients — the whole method. Recipes routinely hide a four-hour marinade or an overnight rest in step two.
- Check the active time separately from the total. 'Ready in 90 minutes' may be 15 minutes of work and 75 of waiting, or the reverse.
- Note equipment. A recipe needing a blender, a thermometer or a specific pan size is worth knowing about before you begin.
- Check the yield and scale before shopping rather than after.
Scaling
Most ingredients scale linearly and several do not.
| Element | Scaling behaviour |
|---|---|
| Main ingredients | Linear |
| Salt and spices | Start at 60–75% of linear, then adjust |
| Cooking liquid | Less than linear — evaporation does not scale with volume |
| Cooking time | Not linear; depth and surface area matter more than quantity |
| Baking | Scales badly — pan geometry changes everything |
Doubling a stew works. Doubling a cake usually does not, because the batter's depth changes and the outside overcooks before the middle sets.
Measurement systems
Recipes from different countries use different conventions, and cup measures are the least reliable: a cup of flour can vary by 20% depending on whether it was scooped or spooned. Weight is exact, which is why professional and most modern baking recipes use grams.
| Ingredient | 1 US cup ≈ |
|---|---|
| Flour, plain | 120–125 g |
| Granulated sugar | 200 g |
| Butter | 227 g |
| Water or milk | 240 ml |
| Rice, uncooked | 185 g |
Note also that an Australian tablespoon is 20 ml against 15 ml elsewhere, which matters in a recipe using several.
Substitutions that work
- Buttermilk — milk plus a tablespoon of lemon juice or vinegar, left ten minutes.
- Self-raising flour — plain flour plus 1½ teaspoons baking powder per cup.
- One egg in baking — a tablespoon of ground flaxseed in three of water, rested.
- Fresh to dried herbs — use one third, and add dried early rather than late.
Substitutions in baking are riskier than in cooking, because ratios of flour, fat, liquid and leavening are doing structural work rather than contributing flavour.
Allergies
Always read the full ingredient list yourself rather than relying on a recipe's tags, and check for hidden sources — soy sauce contains wheat, Worcestershire sauce contains fish, and many stocks contain gluten. For a serious allergy, verify every packaged component's own label rather than trusting a recipe description.