Allow nested ingredients / directions in groups

[whi-tw]

These are pretty useful - they allow sections to make the recipe easier to follow.

Demo

eg:

ingredients:
    - Meatballs:
        - 600 g minced pork
        - 1 onion grated
        - 1 medium free-range eggs lightly beaten
        - 50 g fresh white breadcrumbs
        - 1 long red chilli deseeded and finely chopped
        - 2 tsp root ginger freshly grated
        - 1 tsp garam masala
        - 2 tbsp fresh coriander freshly chopped
        - 1 tbsp oil
    - Curry Sauce:
        - 3 tbsp massaman curry paste
        - 2 tsp root ginger freshly grated
        - 4 tomatoes roughly chopped
        - 200 ml coconut milk
        - 200 ml chicken stock
        - 1 tbsp lemon juice
        - 2 tsp brown sugar
        - chopped cashew nuts to garnish
        - fresh coriander to garnish

(apparently my editor went a bit ham updating whitespace - let me know and I can add it all back in to reduce the size of the diff)

[clarklab]

A) This is awesome!

B) It brings up a bit of debate, as it's similar to functionality I was already working on. I was calling it a "component recipe", ie a recipe made up of other recipes. You can see an example here: https://chowdown.io/recipes/red-berry-tart.html

I was thinking component made sense, because then you could "reuse" the the crust recipe from the larger fruit tart recipe. Or in your example, use the curry sauce recipe in a different dish, like chicken.

What do you think? I'm open to suggestion, I've been thinking about the best way to pair recipes for a while now (another scenario: a master recipe of something like roast chicken, then sub recipes for things to do with the leftover meat, etc)

[carlyman]

Random user chiming in.....I would find myself using nested directions much more frequently than reusable components (let alone the "spouse factor" of being able to save new recipes). Sometimes a component would need tweaking, etc making them more difficult to use. Worst case, in the ingredient list you can say "1 batch of [recipe]" which is how recipe books do it.

[whi-tw]

Sometimes a component would need tweaking, etc making them more difficult to use.

That was exactly where I am with this - I think both could live together in harmony. With the meatball example, I’m not necessarily going to make the sauce separately, and I wonder if for that specific use cause it would cause unnecessary complexity?

[adec]

Another random user here. I think the nested ingredients and components are complementary features rather than conflicting. Where recipe books already group ingredients I’d want to do the same in Chowdown. Often where recipes have nested ingredients, the instructions are interleaved so they don’t really fit well with components. However, I can also see scenarios where components would shine particularly for different variants of a recipe. Personally, I’d like to have the option of using both features.

[adec]

What do you think? I'm open to suggestion, I've been thinking about the best way to pair recipes for a while now (another scenario: a master recipe of something like roast chicken, then sub recipes for things to do with the leftover meat, etc)

Picking up on the point about leftovers, I can see the need for a separate feature - “related recipes”. Which would allow you to reference other recipes for leftovers or different variants of the recipe etc. Ideally there would be a relationship attribute that would allow you to specify what the relationship is. These links to other recipes could be shown at the bottom of the page - much in the way that shopping sites say, you may also be interested in the following items.