Include other recipes

[gabevenberg]

In my recipe database, I have a sauces folder. In many of my recipes, I call for one of the sauces in my sauces folder.

It would be nice if the cooklang spec supported this sort of structure. If I am, say, cooking chicken enchilada casserole, which needs enchilada sauce, I can link the enchilada sauce recipe from the casserole recipe. Then, when I generate my shopping list, cooklang will scale the enchilada sauce recipe as necessary and add the needed ingredients to the shopping list.

[dubadub]

That's a valid use-case. Similar to include in other languages, right?

[briansunter]

My preference would be to just have hyperlinks and mention the referenced recipe in the ingredients, rather than something like a import.

[ziofat]

I don't think scaling with fraction is a good idea. The recipes I am willing to include are always sauces or stock, they are not designed for serving. A stock recipe may yield 1kg but will not serve 1. I'd like to directly include the recipe with specific unit and amount.

[jakeanq]

@gabevenberg / @dubadub - I think you're right, full or relative paths probably does make the most sense.

@briansunter Perhaps an option for whether to include sub-recipes on the list generation? I would envisage it being displayed as a hyperlink in the recipe proper but I could also see potential uses (for example the above-mentioned meal planner idea) for including all of the required recipes in the list.

@ziofat I would imagine if you include it unitless (or maybe there's a specific "servings" unit) it would be connected to the servings, but if you specify other units it will leave it.

[briansunter]

You could also add a list of sub recipes in a tag as well, and the meal prep app could include those related recipes without a special syntax in cooklang (canonical metadata for subrecipes).

>>name: Chicken Enchiladas
>>subrecipes: Enchilada Sauce, Pickled Jalapeños

[dubadub]

@briansunter I like your solution in a way that it's very simple. But it will allow to facilitate simple UIs only. Having sub-recipes inside the main recipe adds context and makes UI aware that around this step a sub-recipe should be prepared. So it can be referenced inside step. Also sub-recipes sometimes can be purchased and used as a regular ingredient.