Change ingredients to shopping list

[mwtaylor]

Edit: See comments for new way of handling this. Ingredient list will continue to be labeled as "Ingredients".

Ingredients list should be changed to say shopping list and all items should be as close as possible to how they are purchased. Staple type ingredients like flour should not have a measure. Things like water should not be listed.

There needs to be a way to write out two formats for one instruction:

• Add water (For the cooking view where the ingredients with measure are listed alongside the instruction)
• Add 2 tablespoons of water (For the main recipe view and Google metadata)

Specific instructions should be added for measuring out ingredients ahead of using them unless it is easy to measure out in the instruction and is not time constrained.

• Ok: Weigh the flour in a bowl Weigh 200 grams of flour in a bowl
• Ok: Add Worcestershire sauce to the simmering sauce Add 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce to the simmering sauce
• Bad: Slowly whisk 1 cup milk into the flour paste

[mwtaylor]

Rethinking this a few months later. There are 4 places to consider:

• Ingredient list
• Recipe directions
• Cooking mode
• Google structured data

Ingredient List

I still agree that this should be as close as possible to how ingredients are purchased. However I don't think anymore that staples should not have a measure.

Some examples:

• 1 white onion
  • Do not include any direction here, such as diced
  • If a specific amount is needed in the recipe then add a different label with a more specific measure
• 200 grams of all-purpose flour
• 1 cup of milk

Recipe Directions

The direction list on the site will be modified to show the ingredient labels instead of my previous thought of writing the measure in the direction.

Some examples

• Measure Milk Measure milk into a cup 1 cup of milk Whisk in Milk Slowly whisk in the milk
• Add in Dry Ingredients Mix together dry ingredients in a separate bowl. Slowly add in to mixer running on slow speed. 200 grams of all-purpose flour 1 teaspoon of salt 4 grams of instant yeast

[mwtaylor]

Cooking Mode

Cooking mode will be the same as recipe directions, just a different format more optimized for viewing on a large screen.

Google Structured Data

Google shows the whole ingredient list alongside each direction. This should allow most directions written for the other two formats to just work.

Some cases that won't work:

• Something like "Mix in all dry ingredients"
• Ingredients that are divided or had some other important transformation done to them
• Ingredients that are duplicated in multiple sections

My new proposal is to add a new key to each recipe step called "standalone_text" that can be optionally included along with "text" that will be used anywhere that the step is shown standalone (standing on its own without any additional data other than the ingredient list).

[mwtaylor]

I also am proposing adding a new key for each ingredient section: "combined_suffix". This will be appended to each ingredient in that section when all ingredients are combined into one list, like they are in Google.

Also the functionality for ingredient section alternatives should be modified so the first in the list is treated as the default. When all ingredients are combined in one list only the default alternative ingredients will be added.