Reinventing the recipe

UPDATE: Here's a revised version including some of your feedback, still trying to figure out a good time scale representation though so input on that is welcome.

I've been playing around with a few ideas I have about how to convey a recipe in a beautiful way while still keeping all the important information. A real balancing act between aesthetics and usability. Here's the first iteration of my idea using my ramen noodle recipe.

Feedback is very much so welcomed, i'd like to flush out what people would love to see in recipes both visually and usability wise. This one was inspired by a gantt chart where the timeline is the focus of the recipe. Had there been overlapping timelines for actions they would stack so you could see that visually as well.

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tarrosion

My main feedback is that I like where this is going but think the way the time is laid out is confusing. What does a gray oval represent? Are the times (3min, 60min, etc) how long each step takes or the time a step should start at? (Here obviously the former since the numbers aren't all increasing, but we can imagine a recipe where it's not as clear.) Why isn't cooking included with the other steps?

mike-chefsteps

Have you tried this format with something like the 13-step molten chocolate souffle recipe? As the graphic grows horizontally, it's going to get pretty unwieldy, particularly if the reader has to refer back to the leftmost edge frequently for ingredient quantities, etc.

The Gantt chart approach seems most useful when there are multiple components in a meal that need to be ready in a small time window, and where they may be competing for resources. Take Thanksgiving, where it's really easy to find yourself with an oven that can hold only 4 casserole dishes, but you have 8 dishes either to cook or to reheat after taking the bird out of the oven.

While I haven't though much about it, or gone looking for alternatives, I think the best format I've seen so far is the one from MC/MCaH. It's very clear, compact, and clean.

borgech

I love the idea!! Like others, I love the MC/MCaH recipe 'cards', but completely appreciate and support the idea of making recipes functional and aesthetically pleasing.

One comment would be the use of colors. I generally think 'stop' when I see red and 'go' when I see green. What do you think about changing the active colors to green and the inactive colors to red? This also would allow you to use blue or yellow to call out specific steps in the process that need special attention or have special notes.

T__2156

I think you're onto something, but if the distance between 3m, 60m, 10m, and 5m is all the same, you lose some valuable Gantt-type information.

Brendan_Lee_56950

i'm still trying to figure out a better way to show the time scale, it's easy in a regular gantt chart since we're dealing with days but when we're dealing with minutes + hours it gets tricky. I've thought about color coding those pills to equal certain times but i'm still struggling with the balance of too much information to learn and keeping it simple.

Brendan_Lee_56950

Yeah I haven't put any thought into color coding specifically for useability yet, those were just the ones I felt like using that day. I think that will be part of the next iteration though

Brendan_Lee_56950

I really like the MC format as well but I feel like it does not give you a sense of time which, when dealing with SV and other long periods of time, can be misleading with such simple recipe formatting.

I'm thinking that I will be ditching the boxes in lieu of something more visual that implies time elapsed but is also slim enough that multiple steps can be stacked.

The other thing I'm aiming to do is to simplify the writing of a recipe. In a lot of recipes I see several steps that can be easily combined so something that was once 13 steps may be more manageable at 8.

Brendan_Lee_56950

I'm still working on the time representation. I had those capsules initially in place to represent time elapsed, like a progress bar, but i'm trying to figure out the best way to convey longer periods of time without disrupting the timeline.

It's a timeline though, so the times imply that's how long it will take to complete as the steps progress in order.

Cooking is something that will be unique to each recipe. This recipe for example is for the noodles themselves, cooking may not be a part of what you want to do with them that day. Had cooking been an integral part of the recipe it would be included in the timeline as a step.

Brendan_Lee_56950

As for the ingredients, IMO, you shouldn't be referring to the sidebar for quantities, you should have all of your ingredients scaled from the get go (mise is important). The ingredient names you are using in each step are represented in each step though so you don't have to refer back to anywhere.

mike-chefsteps

I'll stick to just one reply

I've been thinking about this on and off most of today...

While writing previously it did occur to me that of course you'd have your mise en place ready before cooking - as a home chef mise doesn't figure as prominently into my thinking as it should. But then my next thought was for recipes with long cooking steps: If something's in a bath for four (or 24, or 36) hours, you wouldn't leave your mise for the next steps set up during the entire period. Although right after putting something in the bath seems like a perfect time to prep ingredients - chopping, mixing spices, whatever - so they're easy to set up for the next step. Which the MC format also enables very concisely, since you can just look ahead a step and see what you'll need. Maybe including mise steps before or after lengthy cooking times is a solution.

You're right, the MC format doesn't give much sense of time. If you look at e.g. http://modernistcuisine.com/recipes/lamb-slow-baked-onion-and-pistachio-puree/ every step has equal visual weight, whether it's 18 hours or 18 minutes. So even seeing the "33 hours total" in the summary it's a surprise to read through and encounter "18 hours".

In another answer you wrote "It's a timeline though, so the times imply that's how long it will take to complete as the steps progress in order." The timeline is expressing two different things: time spent waiting for some process, and time spent doing something (we both rest the dough for an hour, but a bumbler like me will probably take a lot longer than 10 minutes to roll it out). I think you'll want to express this differently than just active/inactive, since a step like resting dough can't really be shortened without an effect on quality.

Another challenge I see is how to represent time in a way that will let you visually compare two recipes with wildly varying cooking times - e.g. 72-hour short ribs with the simple sous vide vegetables recipe. One approach is to break up the timeline at steps which are an hour or longer with a line of circles, one for each hour (and some other heavier symbol for days). This conveys at a glance how long between steps and how long for the recipe overall.

You comment about reducing the number of steps reminded me of an experience with Blue Apron. They ship you ingredients plus printed instructions for a number of meals, and the recipes are contrived always to have six steps - you can see them at http://www.blueapron.com/cookbook . Needless to say, some of the steps are... denser than others.

Matthew_Snyder_68770

Make each capsule be a fixed period of time (5 minutes?) and then stack them under the appropriate step. Don't make it quite so linear.

T__2156

I like the way you're thinking. I've been thinking myself about making a chart grouping foods that cook at the same temp but different times, so that I could do multiple courses in the same bath without retherming.

jeekqing_126476

love the idea!! Like others, I love the MC/MCaH recipe 'cards', but completely appreciate and support the idea of making recipes functional and aesthetically pleasing.

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SteveM_20803

Sorry, not intending to hijack this thread but one project that has been rolling around my head for a few years is to do recipes in Pert chart formats. Pert charts better illustrate the interdependence of tasks as opposed to Gnatt which are linear. So for example, you can make the rub anytime after the project starts but it has to be done by the time the ribs are done brining. So the finishing of the brining and the rub would both connect to prep smoking task.

Where I really want to go with this is to code each of the tasks to that you can link several recipes together in other words, like tasks would join together. For example if you were making stuffing and a soup, the prepping vegetables tasks for each would join so you would do prep for both at the same time. If both needed a "make chicken stock" task, those would join too. So the whole meal would be in one chart ending with plating it up for serving.

Brendan_Lee_56950

I like the premise of pert charts but they can very cluttered visually IMO. I personally like things to be linear because it's more intuitive for the average user, I still need to find a better way of representing idle time though so that when things like longer SV cooks are being done the time in between could be utilized for other things.

monaghan.joseph

super helpful though! Thank you!

ttpoker

Hey @Brendan_Lee_56950 , do you have a good source to get Kansui? Nothing available at Amazon.com

Also check this out: http://luckypeach.com/a-timeline-of-ramen-development/

Brendan_Lee_56950

I get mine from my local Asian grocery store. I couldn't find the place online I saw before. It's usually in the same section that the rice wine is in a clear bottle. I use the koon chun brand which is a yellow and purple label. I think you're in Vegas which I imagine would have well stocked asian grocery stores.

ttpoker

Thanks. Yes I am, and yes we do- but this is a product I haven't seen before. I do roughly 40% of my shopping in Asian markets, I'll look for it!