Tips for Cooking With New Scaled Recipes on NYT Cooking
You’ve probably asked yourself if you can turn a four-serving recipe into a dinner for two or a banquet for eight. It seems like a simple matter of arithmetic until you start cooking a meal and discover that twice as many chicken thighs can’t fit in the same pan, or that halving the ingredients in a sauce makes it too thin or too thick.
So the engineers at The New York Times are a generative artificial intelligence model To scale our recipes, I worked with them to address general questions that mathematics alone cannot answer and to create nuanced rules for a variety of situations. (How do you cut three eggs in half?) Our recipe editors, each with decades of professional experience, then reviewed the recipes to scale, and the engineers incorporated that feedback into their models to help achieve the best possible results.
Clicking the scaling feature’s drop-down menu lets you choose to halve or double a recipe (or restore it to the original).Credit…New York Times Cooking
After extensive overhauls, The New York Times Cooking app now offers the option to automatically double and halve all of its recipes (more than 25,000 and counting) with a simple tap. Scaled recipes, unlike the originals, have not been tested to achieve successful results exactly as written, so you will need to exercise extra care in the kitchen. You’ll need to taste, season, and use your other senses (and common sense) as you go to ensure the dish turns out delicious.
Changes made to the recipe appear in orange after being scaled.Credit…New York Times Cooking
Keep these tips in mind when cooking with scaled recipes:
Determine the baking pan you need.
When some recipes are doubled, you’ll see a tip indicating that you may need to split the ingredients between two pots or pans. If ingredients don’t fit in the largest baking dish, follow this advice when preparing larger-format meals like sheet pan meals, holiday stir-fries, or large braises.
Halved baking recipes will automatically include adjusted pan sizes, and doubled recipes often recommend using two of the same pan. If you are an experienced baker with a variety of baking pans, you can also choose another pan with half or twice the volume of the original.
If a doubling recipe calls for a slow cooker, air fryer, wok, pressure cooker or grill, you may need to work in batches. (The same goes for recipes that use a blender, stand mixer, or food processor.) For halved recipes, you may need to scrape the bowl more to blend smaller amounts.
Weigh the eggs for the most accurate results.
It’s easy to double the eggs, but halving odd numbers, yolks, or whites becomes difficult. For recipes where eggs are cooked and served whole, cook them as much as you want. For baked goods such as puddings, pancake batter and quiches, cakes and pastries, we have given the egg weight as well as the egg count range. For example, half of “3 large eggs” is listed as “1 to 2 large eggs (about 75 grams).” To get what you need, break two eggs into a bowl, mix and weigh out 75 grams. Follow the same procedure for egg yolk or white, depending on need.
Taste and adjust seasonings as you go.
In double recipes, especially when the spices are fresh and therefore at their strongest, think twice about whether you want twice as many spices, such as spices or dried herbs, in your final dish. Start with slightly less than the recipe calls for (you can always taste and adjust later). Alternatively, if they’re a little past their prime but you still want to use them, go ahead and double down (or even sneak in a little more)! CATHY LO
Focus on cooking tips rather than cooking times.
Recipes usually take longer to cook when doubled, while recipes halved usually cook faster. Cooking times in scaled recipes remain unchanged because any differences cannot be calculated as reliably as ingredient amounts. Pay special attention to cooking tips (“until golden,” “until puffed,” etc.) as well as cooking times. In general, check doneness beforehand for halved recipes, and keep in mind that doubled recipes may need to bake (or bake) longer. ALEXA WEIBEL
Adjust stove temperature as needed.
The recipe scaling tool does not adjust the original stovetop or oven temperature because it usually does not need to change. But sometimes you may need to reduce the heat of the burner to bring it to a proper simmer, or increase the heat if the food appears to steam rather than burn. ON BEHALF OF STEIMAN
Alternate oven racks to ensure even baking.
For double recipes that use a two-layer pan or baking dish or skillet, start by placing racks in the upper and lower thirds of the oven before preheating. Oven heat tends to be uneven, so be sure to switch pans between racks halfway through baking time to ensure both baking pans receive a more consistent amount of heat. ON BEHALF OF STEIMAN
The module above the recipe reminds you that the recipe has been scaled but not tested.Credit…New York Times Cooking
As you can see, scaling recipes (like cooking itself) is an inexact science. The benefit of trying a scaled recipe is how much it can teach you, in addition to getting the number of servings you want: Finding necessary (and subtle) adjustments is a great way to become a more skilled cook. We are also constantly working to improve this productive AI feature. If you come across something you think needs to change, click the “Send us feedback” email link that appears below the scaled content list, or Share your thoughts here.
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