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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Eggy bread
The best use there is for stale bread. Fresh bread is no good here — it collapses before it has absorbed anything.
Crêpes
Flour, egg, milk. The one condition for crêpes that do not tear is half an hour of rest.
Pan-fried meatballs
A meatball holds together because it rested, not because of what went into it. Kneaded mince does not meet the pan without half an hour in the fridge.
Musakka
Turkish musakka has no béchamel: aubergine, mince and tomato in one pan. Confusing it with the Greek version is a common mistake.
Saç kavurma
High heat, small pieces, an uncrowded pan. Miss any one of the three and it is not a sauté but a stew.
Kadınbudu köfte
Half the mince is cooked and half is raw. The cooked half stops it collapsing and the raw half is what binds it.
İçli köfte
Whether the shell thins without splitting depends on its temperature: cold bulgur cracks and warm bulgur stretches.
Chicken schnitzel
Beating the meat thin is a requirement rather than a shortcut: a 1 cm breast cannot cook before the coating burns.
Courgette fritters
A mücver made without squeezing the courgette falls apart. One courgette gives up half a glass of water, and with that water in the batter nothing binds.
Sautéed mushrooms
Mushrooms are wiped, not washed. And the salt goes in last: early salt draws their water out and makes browning impossible.
Garlic-sautéed broccoli
The broccoli is blanched two minutes and dropped into iced water. That shock locks the green in, and the sauté cannot take it back out.
Falafel
The chickpeas are never boiled, only soaked. Falafel made with cooked chickpeas disintegrates in the oil, and nothing rescues it.
White bean patties
There is no protein network here to bind the patty. What takes its place is gelatinised starch, which firms as it cools: the fridge is what holds these together.