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Servings
Guidelines to Servings and Portion Sizes
At first glance the procedure to amend a 4 person recipe to serve 2 people would seem to be obvious: simply divide all of the ingredients in two.
Although many recipes follow this rule, it is far from satisfactory. For this reason, we do not provide an automated portion adjustment.
I usually cook for 2 people, but most of the recipes I follow are for 4 people and to adapt them I find the following rough guidelines helpful:
A theoretical recipe for 4, adjusted for 2 people
- Meat ,eggs, fish, potatoes, rice, pasta, bulky vegetables, canned vegetables: halve the quantities
- Onions, garlic, chillies, herbs, spices, seasonings: generally leave as in the original recipe but pay consideration to strong ingredients: the heat from chillies, the pungency of garlic and ginger.
- Sauces, use half of the ingredients and make half the quantity
- Fats and oils for frying: reduce by half, you can always add extra if necessary
Be confident and trust your judgement, unless you are a real novice, your best guess is probably going to be pretty close.
Do you disagree?
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--Chef 09:59, 7 November 2010 (GMT)
