How many subrecipes does it take to make this Buffalo Chicken Pizza from The United States of Pizza? Two. You have to make the dough and the sauce, and then put it all together. (Photo by Jeff Kauck.)
When I read this line, I felt a shudder of recognition: “How many times have I begun working through a recipe only to realize halfway through that I needed to have started yesterday? F*ck2 that!”
You’re probably nodding. This writer hates not being warned about steps to take in advance. He probably also dislikes recipes-within-a-recipe.
As a cook, I don’t like them either. Yet as a recipe writer, it’s inevitable that I write them. Subrecipes (recipes within a recipe, often on another page) are a necessary evil to keep recipes from appearing even longer.
Fortunately, The Washington Post‘s Bonnie Benwick figured out how to keep readers from fuming. After she explained her method to me, I wrote all the recipes in my latest cookbook using her genious approach:
Tell readers to make the subrecipes first.
Traditionally in recipes with subrecipes, readers reach for the sauce and realize they haven’t made it yet. Hence the swearing. But you could change that. Here’s all it takes:
- List the subrecipe titles at the top of the ingredients list, rather than later, when readers need them.
- Begin the method with instructions to make the subrecipes before continuing with the recipe. Here’s how I started instructions for a pizza recipe, for example: “Make the pizza dough at least 24 hours ahead. Rest the dough on the counter until it comes to room temperature, about 1 hour. Make the chunky tomato sauce.”
It sounds obvious, doesn’t it? So yes, for my recipe, the irate reader really did have to start yesterday. But at least he knows up front what to expect, and how to plan.
What do you think? Does it make sense to put subrecipes first in the ingredients list and the method? Do you have other ideas on how to handle them?
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Thanks for a great tip! Sub-recipe or not, it’s always helpful to mention any timing consideration in the headnote. Who wants to find out that “this soup tastes best on the second day” just as we’re about to serve it? Same for, “The salad needs at least four hours to chill.” Or, “The dough for this bread rises twice: 18 hours after you mix it, and an overnight rest in the fridge after it’s been shaped.” Although we are taught to read through a recipe carefully before starting, most people don’t. There’s no gain in blindsiding your reader midway through the recipe.
No there isn’t, although we persist in doing it by only mentioning that little fact about the dough half way in, when people are imagining eating it in a few hours. And indeed, most of us don’t read the recipe carefully, so this guy is within his rights to be annoyed. Thanks Jennie.
I so agree – headnotes are the place for, well, notes. Even though I write recipes, I do admit (shame!) to even skipping tho headnotes and going straight to the ingredients when a recipe’s title intrigues me….I guess we cannot get everything right for every reader every time!
Yes, sometimes I put warnings in headnotes about what has to be done ahead or what takes more time, but as you’re saying, there’s no guarantee that people read them.
I can’t believe people don’t read a recipe through before diving into it. If a recipe is titled “Chicken Tikka Masala with Naan” I’m going to assume I need to have or make naan, aren’t you? If it’s something I’ve never made before, I’m checking to make sure I have the ingredients (and equipment) necessary to wind up with the dish as intended. I have a good handle on what ingredient swaps I can make if I lack something in my fridge or pantry but I try to make it as intended the first time around and then tinker later if warranted. Very few people can look at a recipe and just wing it (I’m looking at you Food52!)
I’m afraid you think readers are just like you, Joann. They’re not! It’s best to meet them where they are. I am also guilty of not reading a recipe all the way through.
With the rise of the chef-penned cookbook, I feel like I’m seeing more subrecipes than ever. And with (in my opinion) the decline of cookbooks being edited by people with both culinary smarts and a feel for the thought process of home cooks, I see them handled very much as an afterthought. Thanks for sharing Bonnie’s approach, which I am going to appropriate.
One of the reasons I love teaching hands-on cooking classes is how I get to see home cooks in action. I have learned the hard way to remind students to read the recipe before they dive in. So no matter how many thoughtful heads-ups you may give in the hednote, it’s safe to assume about half of your readers will never lay eyes on it.
Well, speaking as an editor, I would have a hard time editing restaurant chef recipes. My first thought would be “who’s really going to do all this?” I have helped my chef co-author streamline and simplify his recipes, and he really gets it, thankfully. I am lucky.
I still don’t always read recipes all the way through. I’m impatient or tired, I just want to make it, I think I can fake my way through it — and sometimes I do. And when that approach doesn’t work, swearing may ensue.
YES! I got into it with my cookbook editor about my chapters on pie and tarts about this, and this was the exact solution we came up with. Hooray for giving readers a heads up!
I’m so pleased to know that other writers and editors are using this approach. There’s no reason to repeat recipes for pie crust in each recipe, and readers do need to know that they have to make the pie crust first. It’s the same thing I went through with pizza. Brava!
Dianne,
I am glad to see a discussion about sub-recipes. I agree with Sara Bir above, it has been EXTREMELY helpful in my recipe-writing to have taught hands-on classes. Seems the best test ever! Also, I must say, having my 10 year old do an initial test on my recipe has proved to show me what a true beginner cook does when they first read a recipe. Basically, they don’t! And they have lots of questions and difficulty tracking back and forth between the ingredients and method sections. Call me crazy, but sometimes I really want to revamp the traditional method of recipe writing.
Hmm, I would like to know more about how you would revamp. Some have tried, but we do seem to be stuck in a rut, unless we’re writing narrative recipes a la Elizabeth David.
Love this Dianne. This happens often. Last year I especially found it maddening when I was taking my certificate course and needed to cook five recipes on the same day, only to find that I couldn’t get those done and had to quickly find others to do in it’s place to finish my course on time. Thanks for addressing the problem this way.
You are most welcome, Lili. I hope you try this method of recipe writing. Your students will thank you.
This post was very helpful to me; it’s something I’ve been struggling with in trying to write recipes for my baking blog. As a pastry chef, I tend to think of recipes in terms of “components”. For instance, the “components” for a layer cake might include several subrecipes: sheet cake, mousse, lemon curd, and buttercream. If I alert the reader in the headnote that the recipe requires certain things to be made ahead of time and then list the subrecipes (with links) as ingredients in the Ingredient list, does this take care of the issue? Also, I notice that you spell subrecipes as one word. Is it also correct as a hyphenated word?
Yes, I can see how you think of them as components, because they are separate and each different from each other. I don’t think it’s sufficient to alert the reader in the headnote. You could do so in addition to rewriting the recipe according to what has to be made in which order.
Re subrecipe being hyphonated, I am not sure. My rule of thumb is to leave it out if it can be understood without the hyphen. See http://www.grammarbook.com/punctuation/hyphens.asp