Alright Emily, what is your job? I know you do a bit more than recipe development.
I’m a food writer, editor, and recipe developer! I made this my career after working in restaurants, farmer’s markets, and at a food bank. I’ve covered the dining beat at newspapers and been a restaurant critic. Now, I spend most of my time writing and editing food, dining, and cooking-related content for both print and digital publications: Better Homes & Gardens, Serious Eats, The Mediterranean Dish, Eater, Wine & Spirits, and more. I write content, but I also do a lot of behind-the scenes work of mentoring other writers, editorial planning, pitching ideas, website wrangling, and reporting, especially for stories about chefs, restaurants, and travel. As a food creative I’m a little bit unusual in that people generally do one (writing/editing) or another (recipe development), but I’ve always been somebody who has had a broad interest in food and I relish the opportunity to do both.
What does recipe development entail?
The recipe development side of my job involves writing custom recipes and then cooking them over and over until I feel confident they will deliver! Fundamentally, recipe development is a specific style of technical writing, backed up with hands-on testing. I do most of my recipe development on behalf of food and cookware brands and publications and from my home kitchen, but many recipe developers work in test kitchens for food companies. Some of us share our work on blogs, in newsletters, and in cookbooks, either under our own names or as ghostwriters on behalf of brands.
How do you go about developing a recipe?
I often start by thinking expansively about a particular goal typically set by the client. In the past year, I’ve developed recipes to replicate various regional American pizza styles at home without an industrial pizza oven! I’ve made a Mediterranean-diet friendly version of an Italian classic chicken spiedini and I’ve figured out ways to use ingredients like feta brine to develop a recipe that captures flavor and reduces food waste. At Boonville Barn, I develop recipes that showcase the diverse flavors of dried chiles, beyond their heat level, that help people understand how to use their products in ways that help people get dinner on the table.
For every client and project the ask is slightly different. Often, it’s to do something new with a specific ingredient, along with parameters like using a particular cooking method or pan in under 30 minutes.
I often start by researching my cookbook collection and scouring online to learn what’s already out there and help me identify opportunities for innovation. That informs how I come up with a big brainstorm list of ideas, generally a couple of sentences explaining the idea for the dish and what the result will look/taste like.
The client or publication whittles the concepts down, based on their needs. I then draft recipes exactly as you would see them written in a cookbook but with hypothetical cook times and temperatures. Then I collect my ingredients. Once I’m in the kitchen I apply the scientific method to test each concept. I use scales and a bevy of timers to help track how long prep time, vs cook time, and the time each step takes. I evaluate the results for how things look and taste and document my results. I often poll my partner, neighbors, or friends for their opinions, too. I then cross-test various iterations against the initial goal until both I and my clients are happy with the results.
Some days, this might mean making 4 variations of a recipe for enchilada sauce! Or cross-testing a peach cobbler to see how the bake time and result changes based on whether I’m using fresh peaches or frozen ones.
