Essentials of reading a Recipe

In the restaurant, commercial food service operation, or military feeding systems the use of standardized recipes are incredibly important. By standardizing recipes, training is simplified and consistency is supported. When dealing with huge sums of money for ingredients it is critical for the successful operation of a feeding system or restaurant to minimize waste of resources, which would also include food spoiling in the refrigerators or expiring on the shelves. Maintaining excess ingredients have to be paid for in the first place and until they are used that expense represents costs that aren't converted to profit. More importantly for the culinarian, having standardized recipes just makes understanding what to do to be successful that much easier. This is the perspective that seems most useful here.

No matter the format or particular way a culinarian standardizes their recipes there are some essential elements. The list of minimum requirements for recipes typical for home use is quite short. Home recipes should at a minimum include:

• name of the food
• list of ingredients (ideally in the order used)
• amounts of the ingredients, in both measure / count and weight would be best
• step by step instructions
• additional information that is relevant to the preparation of the food

The Armed Forces Recipe Service (military recipe cards) has a very good format that is clear and easy to follow. Given, the portions are in servings of 100 so the recipes need to be modified for family or smaller quantities, but nonetheless the format is ideal and a modified version is used in this resources recipe collection. The image to the right is a copy of the recipe for Salisbury Steak.