How the NYT Cooking Team (Obsessively) Tests Recipes

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When Julia Moskin, a reporter for The New York Times Food section, developed the recipes for her Creamy Macaroni and Cheese, she was looking for an ideal cheesy classic. The process started when she began diving into cookbooks across different periods for recipes for the dish, some of which dated back centuries. From there, she interviewed chefs and cookbook authors for their own thoughts on macaroni and cheese while developing the recipe.

After testing several versions, including one with dry pasta, in her home kitchen, Ms. Moskin eventually settled on a recipe that her sister-in-law passed along, which involves baking cottage cheese, Cheddar cheese and uncooked pasta. It not only tastes delicious, but is one of The Times’s highest rated recipes.

“What usually makes a recipe better is not more ingredients,” Ms. Moskin, who writes the Recipe Lab column, said. “It’s usually technique and method.”

Recipes have been a regular feature in The Times since the paper’s founding in the 1850s. This year, the Food desk will produce upward of 400 recipes that live at NYT Cooking, the recipe database website and app run by The Times, varying from simple pasta dishes that can be made in under 30 minutes to a 24-hour recipe for no-knead bread. Each of the recipes is intended to add some sort of value for home cooks, be it a new way to use your browning bananas or a revamped take on a classic recipe.

“The New York Times is about helping people understand the world they live in so they live more fulfilling and rich lives,” said Sam Sifton, Food’s editor. “I believe that to be true and think of food as part of it.”

Inspiration for recipes can come from almost anywhere, including trips to the grocery store or the hope of improving a recent meal, said Melissa Clark, who writes the Good Appetite column. During a recent dinner of chicken with bay leaves, she found herself thinking, “This is good, but how do I take it to next level?” Inspired by these curiosities and the batch of bay leaves from her garden, Ms. Clark ended up with a new recipe: Bay Leaf Chicken With Orange Parsley Salad.

“It needs to rise above what somebody can throw together,” she said. “Is there another seasoning to bring out flavor, that could layer the flavor?”

Once the idea is set in place, the developer begins reporting and researching. Ms. Clark often tests other recipes “as a benchmark” and borrows characteristics she enjoys. She and Ms. Moskin both emphasized digging through old cookbooks and consulting experts on the cuisine or dish they are developing.

“I just can imagine some readers that are thinking that we’re just sitting around or in the kitchen with our aprons on,” Ms. Moskin said. “It’s not that at all.”

For her classic marinara sauce, published in January 2014, Ms. Moskin interviewed experts like the chef Lidia Bastianich for historical background and recommendations for types of tomatoes and herbs to use. She also adapted recipes from Ms. Bastianich’s book “Lidia’s Commonsense Italian Cooking,” like classic marinara sauce and shrimp alla marinara. She learned a handy rule of thumb — marinara sauce must be cooked in less than 15 minutes — which she passed onto readers.

For each recipe, there are multiple tests, although that number can range anywhere from two to upwards of eight. This ensures it will consistently produce a balance in taste, texture, temperature and mouthfeel. Ms. Clark’s chocolate-crusted banana blondies suffered during the testing when one batch had too much liquid. In the next test run, when she added more flour and eggs, the problem was resolved.

Given that most readers are home cooks, Times recipe developers like Ms. Moskin and Ms. Clark take steps to sway readers into wanting to take the plunge: buying groceries and making the recipe. Editors might suggest different ingredients that are more likely to appeal to a wider audience — chicken thighs instead of quail, for instance — or that are low in supply in the database. Developers try to avoid hard-to-find spices, listing substitutions whenever possible.

“As a department, I think we try to strike that balance between user-friendly accessibility and also interest and added value and intelligence,” Ms. Clark said.

A surprisingly daunting challenge, however, is translating the recipe from notes into copy that readers can follow for reproducible results. Ms. Moskin said while a recipe that runs at thousands of words will definitely scare off readers, she tries to err on the side of over-informing her audience with that extra step or two, letting readers know that they’re not alone in the kitchen.

“You don’t want it to look like it’s complicated, but you do want people to have all the information that they need,” Ms. Moskin said, “because it’s those subtle things that we know that we kind of take for granted that we want to convey, which is what helps people improve as cooks.”