Food & recipes

I’m scaling up recipes to cook for a large dinner party. Can I just scale up all the flavourings, too?

Here’s how to cook for any group no matter how big or small…

Not always. Cooking times may increase in a larger dish, which increases the time the flavour has to develop. The ratios may not always stack up, either. Ingredients such as spices, chilli, salt, onions, garlic and alcohol should not be multiplied by the party size as they can overpower the recipe. 1tsp to 1tbsp of chilli for an example, will have a big impact on the finished dish. If you’re scaling the recipe by more than two, increase the spices by half for each additional person so as not to overpower the dish. For example, if you’re cooking for four and the original recipe for one calls for 5g of spice, the new amount for the scaled recipe will be 15g (5g + 5g + 2.5g + 2.5g).
Remember, you can add more of the ingredient but you won’t be able to remove it. Start off small and add accordingly.

About the expert: Nutritionist Eva Killeen directs the CNM Natural Chef and Vegan Natural Chef Diploma Courses. Visit https://www.naturopathy-uk.com/naturalchef for more details.

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