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Scaled to however many of you there are.

Change the headcount and the amounts follow. Salt and spice do not scale in a straight line, and we account for that.

A recipe is how you make a thing: the amounts, the order, the timing and where it goes wrong. The dish pages explain what that thing is — where it comes from, the mechanism behind it, and why skipping one step makes it something else. One stays open in the kitchen; the other is read when you wonder.

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Pumpkin soup

Pumpkin soup

Boiled pumpkin gives a watery, flat soup. Roasted pumpkin is the same vegetable and a completely different soup.

60 min 207 kcal
İzmir meatballs

İzmir meatballs

Searing the meatballs and then baking them in sauce is two dishes in one: the crust stays outside while the inside drinks the sauce.

100 min 595 kcal
Slow-roast lamb shank

Slow-roast lamb shank

Three hours at 150 °C. There is no way to shorten it: collagen becomes gelatin with time rather than with temperature.

225 min 855 kcal
Karnıyarık

Karnıyarık

The one thing that stops an aubergine drinking oil is a soak in salted water: cells full of water leave no room for fat.

75 min 440 kcal
Lamb casserole

Lamb casserole

The meat has two hours and the vegetables have forty minutes. Put them in together and the vegetables vanish while the meat is still raw.

175 min 739 kcal
Roast beef

Roast beef

Not a dish to make without a thermometer. The answer to "how many minutes" depends on the temperature at the centre, not on the weight.

135 min 635 kcal
Oven lamb tandır

Oven lamb tandır

Four hours at 140 °C, then fifteen minutes at 240. Without the second number the meat is tender and pale.

290 min 749 kcal
Hasanpaşa köfte

Hasanpaşa köfte

The purée on top is a lid rather than a decoration: in the oven it keeps the meat’s juice in.

105 min 678 kcal
Whole roast chicken

Whole roast chicken

The breast is ready at 65 °C and the leg at 75. Roasting a whole bird is entirely the business of hitting both at once.

115 min 734 kcal
Chicken casserole

Chicken casserole

Made with thigh, and there is no alternative: breast certainly dries over forty minutes in an oven.

80 min 698 kcal
Oven chicken wings

Oven chicken wings

Crisp wings without a fryer are possible, on one condition: a night uncovered in the fridge to dry the skin.

780 min 334 kcal
Home-made chicken nuggets

Home-made chicken nuggets

Half the meat in a shop nugget is skin, cartilage and water. At home you know what is in it, and the difference shows up in the salt.

73 min 477 kcal
Tray-roasted vegetables

Tray-roasted vegetables

A vegetable that does not fit on the tray does not roast, it steams. Using two trays instead of one is the only trick in this recipe.

60 min 340 kcal
Türlü

Türlü

The name means "all sorts" and the recipe means it: whatever is in the house goes in. The one rule is the order they cook in.

90 min 266 kcal
Potato and mince bake

Potato and mince bake

Without a pre-cook the potato slices boil rather than brown over forty minutes in the oven.

80 min 550 kcal
Oven potato wedges

Oven potato wedges

The secret of a crisp wedge is not in the oven but before it: a boil and a shake. Without roughening the surface there is no crust.

60 min 323 kcal