Recipes: Principles: Zubereitung format
The Zubereitung section should be a numbered list of steps.
As much as feasible, each step should consist of:
An optional/conditional guard that specifies if the step applies.
An action (e.g., “add tomatoes to the mix”).
A duration or condition before the next step can begin (“… at high heat until it boils”). Generally, this is a passive action.
- This is not strictly required: sometimes there’s no need to wait (for example, because the step was just broken down into smaller steps or because the preparation is finished).
- Examples of passive actions:
- Wait for some time or for a condition (until it boils).
- Let something cook, bake, fry, drain, cool down.
Make sure the steps don’t skip numbers (i.e., start at “1” and increment sequentially).
Reject if steps can be combined
Reject inputs if some steps should be combined.
This happens when a step describes only a duration or condition, immediately following a step that described an action but omitted its associated duration or condition.
Instead of (bad!)
- Add onions to the pan.
- Let the mix cook for 10 Min.
Just (good!):
- Add onions to the pan and let the mix cook for 10 Min.
Reject if steps should be split
We want to avoid a step with multiple unrelated active actions.
This implies that preparatory actions (e.g., washing, chopping, draining) should typically be kept separate from the step where the prepared ingredients are added, even if the preparatory step has neither a duration nor a condition.
An exception to this are actions that are done “at once”, where they may be described as two (or more!) separate actions but tend to be executed somewhat concurrently.
For example:
Accept: “Die Zutaten mischen und würzen.” It is natural to mix and season things at the same time.
Accept: “Die Kürbishalften nach oben legen und mit der Mischung bedecken.” Even though “legen” and “bedecken” are two active actions, “bedecken” is really the dominant action; (“legen” just describes how to do this).
Simple steps given in the ingredients list
Single initial “preparatory” actions to be performed on individual ingredients (such as “chopping an onion” or “peeling a carrot” or “slicing parsley”) should NOT be given in the “Zubereitung” section; instead, they can be moved directly to the “Zutaten” section, right next to the ingredient.
An exception to this may be when the same action has to be performed for two or more ingredients (e.g. “Die Zwiebeln, Peterli und Tomaten fein schneiden”). In this case, for brevity, this rule is relaxed (the recipe could choose any of the two options).
Example
The following is incorrect:
## Zutaten
* Zwiebeln: 1
## Zubereitung
1. Die Zwiebeln fein schneiden.It should instead be:
## Zutaten
* Zwiebeln: 1: fein gehackt