SC - Scaling up recipes?

[Philip & Susan Troy]

LrdRas at aol.com wrote:
> 
> In a message dated 6/21/99 2:48:23 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
> rygbee at montana.com writes:
> 
> << The above sauce is enough for one chicken. >>
> 
> So what your saying is that if you make this recipe in 2 different pots
> exactly the same and serve it from the individual pots you will have enough
> sauce in each pot for each chicken BUT that if you combine the 2 pots you
> will have more sauce than you need?
> 
> Ras

In general, or maybe in a theoretical sense, I'm inclined to agree with
Ras, repeating the mantra "All Other Things Being Equal". Yes, if one
cup of sauce per chicken is right, then two cups of sauce is what you'd
get regardless of whether you scaled up the recipe by two or made the
recipe as is, twice. Or, if you did double the recipe, and then divided
the resulting dish into halves, each containing one chicken and one cup
of sauce, would there be too much sauce, and if so, how do you explain
this phenomenon? Answers in the form of an essay, using one side of the
paper only, please. 

Now, all this being said, there are factors which will cause reality to
deviate from this basically unassailable logic. One is that larger-scale
recipes may or may not be prepared using pots, pans, and burners such
that exposed surface area, BTU's, evaporation and cooking times aren't
the same. In other words, All Other Things Are Not Always Equal. It is,
of course, the cook's job to take such things into consideration.

Now, I have a theory to put forth in regard to the Amazing Chicken Sauce
Mystery. My explanation is simple. A cup of sauce _is_ slightly too
much. But, when you serve it, removing from the equation the amount that
stays in the pan after pouring it out, and stays in the serving platter
or bowl, gels in the bowl or on your plate as you eat, as occasionally
happens with cornstarch-thickened sauces, you may get more like 3/4 cup
of sauce actually going into people. Now, when you multiply, even by
two, often cooks will use the same pan for both jobs, assuming it
doesn't overflow. So, how much of your sauce do you lose? Less than 1/2
cup. Eventually when you multiply by ten or so, you probably end up with
nearer ten times your original sauce estimate, and, yes, it might be
seen as too much.

I think an extremely important piece of the puzzle was provided by
Anne-Marie, who scooped me on it ;  ), that multiplying the ingredients
is probably the best way to determine how much of everything to buy, but
that you may want to use less of certain things, depending on potency,
etc., in a discretionary manner as you cook. A problem with this type of
calculation is that very few people (well, _I_ sure don't) understand
what laws are at work well enough to anticipate what ingredients
multiply well and which ones seem not to.

As for spices, I still think the biggest problem is that many people
have a hard time multiplying 1/4 tsp by 200, and end up seeing that they
need approximately one cup of something, and go on to buy eight ounces
of it, because everyone knows a cup weighs eight ounces. Yeah, that
cinnamon is gonna be pungent, all right!      

Adamantius
- -- 
Phil & Susan Troy

troy at asan.com
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