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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Vegetable soup
Throwing everything in at once is easy and wrong. These vegetables differ twofold in cooking time, and knowing the order is the only skill involved.
Pumpkin soup
Boiled pumpkin gives a watery, flat soup. Roasted pumpkin is the same vegetable and a completely different soup.
Celeriac soup
Celeriac starts browning the moment it is cut. Dropping it into acidulated water is a chemical intervention rather than a cosmetic one.
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.
Spinach with rice
A kilo of spinach cooks down to a handful, which is why the size of the pan is part of the recipe.
Leeks in olive oil
Leek grit hides between the layers and rinsing does not reach it: it has to be cut first and soaked after.
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.
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.
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.
Chickpea stew
Dried chickpeas, tomato paste and olive oil — and a pinch of bicarbonate that halves the cooking time.
Borlotti bean pilaki
A pilaki is eaten cold, and that is why there is sugar in it: perception of sweetness drops as food cools, so what tastes right hot tastes flat cold.
Hummus
Smooth hummus is not a question of the blender but of the skins: no machine makes it velvety while they are still on.
Broad bean purée
Broad beans are not boiled in their skins: the skin cooks but never chews, and the purée comes out gritty.
Falafel
The chickpeas are never boiled, only soaked. Falafel made with cooked chickpeas disintegrates in the oil, and nothing rescues it.
Green lentil stew
A green lentil keeps its skin and holds its shape; a red one is already skinned and split, so it collapses. The same plant, two different dishes.
Spinach with chickpeas
Under a lid, spinach turns olive-drab in its own acid. With the lid off, the colour and the taste both stay where they were.
Black-eyed pea stew
The one common dried pulse that needs no soaking: its coat is thin and permeable, so it goes from dry seed to tender in twenty-five minutes.
Bulgur pilaf
Bulgur does not cook, it takes up water. It is wheat that has already been boiled, so what matters is not the time on the flame but the time under the lid.
Bulgur pilaf with lentils
Two grains, two rules: the lentils must boil, the bulgur only absorbs. Put them in together and one collapses while the other stays hard.
Tomato bulgur pilaf
The acid in tomato slows how fast bulgur takes up water. The answer is not more water but putting the tomato in after the bulgur has swollen.