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Just a quick question - can I categorise no-cheese cheesecakes as Recipe Type Cheesecakes?!

Hi EYB team and fellow indexers! I have a Q on defining what is, and what isn't a sub-recipe...

How do we define what is a sub-recipe for the purposes of categorising its recipe type within a larger main recipe? EYB instructions state that e.g. "Chess pie with blackened pineapple salsa & caramel sauce" - categorize as Pies, tarts & pastries; Dips, spreads & salsas; and Sauces for desserts.", so that's categorising based on what's listed in the title, but what about recipes that have lots of components seperated out within the ingredients list but not the title? I'm indexing a book at the moment where almost every recipe has multiple components, lots of them on other pages with other recipes and not listed as recipes by themselves anywhere so it's pretty confusing!

An example:

Recipe for Kimchee ramen soup

• 200g ramen noodles


• 2 litres Kimchee broth (see below)


• 1 packet fish cakes


• 100g classic kimchee (see p.34)For the kimchee broth:


• 1.2 litres Dashi broth (see p.147)


• 450ml kimchee juice


• 2 tbsp chilli powder

So would I just list the recipe type as Soups (the main/title recipe category), or would I list Soups AND Stocks (the main recipe + the kimchee/dashi broth recipe on the same page) OR list as Soups AND Stocks AND Chutneys, pickles & relishes (the main recipe, the broth-stock recipe and the kimchee on p.34)?

Also lots of recipes have ingredient lists that are broken into multiple components that aren't specifically listed in the title e.g. 'for the marinade' 'for the sauce' 'for the XX pickle', should all those recipe types be included as if they were sub-recipes? I'm guessing not since their method isn't seperate from the main recipe method but just want to be sure!

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Hi Fahara - we know that sub-recipes can be confusing when you first start indexing.  Where the sub-recipes are actually listed elsewhere in the book you do not list them as a category.  The point of the categories is so anyone searching that book (or their entire Bookshelf) can find a recipe that may be "hidden" within another one but could be useful for you in a different context.  So you do not need to categorize Chutney, pickles and relishes as that category will already be applied to the kimchee recipe on p.34.  The same would apply to the Dashi broth which is also listed on p.147.

However, the kimchee broth is not listed anywhere else in the book, it is a sub-recipe of this recipe.  So you would add Stocks as a category for this recipe.

On your other question about all the mutiple components within a recipe, you really have to make a judgment call as to whether those sub-recipes have a use beyond the recipe containing them.  I would say that pickles, sauces and marinades have a use beyond just one recipe.  But as always, we would be interested to hear input from other member indexers.

In the book I am indexing ATM, I list the subrecipe category if it is mentioned in the title etc. Subrecipes that are not mentioned in the title or elsewhere in the book I list as separate recipes with their category as well as listing the ingredients within the main recipe, particularly if they can be used with other recipes. e.g. " x salad with ginger dressing" would be listed as both a salad and a dressing etc., but if an "x salad" recipe has a subrecipe for a "ginger dressing" not mentioned in the title, I would index the subrecipe separately with the dressing category as well as including the ingredients in the main recipe.

You are right to index extra virgin olive oil as "olive oil" and in the case of the recipe you mentioned, that will cover both types. The only varieties there are separate ingredients for in the database are flavored olive oils (basil, rosemary, etc.).

I queried this when I indexed my first book. I don't really agree with the decision just to index it as olive oil, since there is a variety of olive oils, all with different applications. And I am a pedant! However, that's the judge's decision!

I just finished indexing my first book.  As others have said here, it was very interesting -- frustrating at times, but interesting.

I have a couple of questions about classifying recipes.  The first is about ethnicities.  My book was all stir-fries, so the recipes were nominally Asian.  I classified them as Asian under ethnicities, but working from the ingredients (e.g., kaffir lime leaves) and my modest experience with Asian cooking, it would have been possible assign a more specific ethnicity to perhaps ¾ of them.  Based on my interpretation of the instructions, I decided not to guess, and so provided a more specific ethnicity only in the case of recipes that included one in the title (pad Thai) or were in the examples (chow mein).  Was this right?

The second question is similar -- how conservative should we be in classifying recipes as vegan or vegetarian?   As an example, in a section of my book labeled “Vegetables” (not “vegetarian”) there is a recipe for “tofu pad Thai” that does not include the usual pad Thai ingredients of fish sauce, eggs, and shrimp in one form or another.  It does, however, include “pad Thai sauce.”  Based on a superficial internet search, pad Thai sauce seems to usually have shrimp and/or fish sauce in it, so I did not classify it as vegetarian.  Based on the example of treating cheese as vegetarian, discussed in posts above, should I have labeled it vegetarian on the assumption that vegetarians could be careful to buy only vegetarian pad Thai sauce, assuming there is such a thing?  There were several other recipes that called for prepared sauces (char siu sauce, “Cantonese sauce”) to which the same question applies.

I agree that the store-cupboard ingredients list should recognize that brown onions are the same as yellow onions.

Wodtke, I am working on a book right now that has a recipe called "Vegetarian enchiladas" and I can't classify it as vegetarian - because the recipe calls for chicken stock!

We need smilies in this forum...imagine an eyerolling smiley in this space :)

The eyeroll's for the cookbook author, though, yes?  If s/he'd called for just 'stock' or 'vegetable stock' it would in fact be a vegetarian recipe, and there'd be no indexing dilemma.

ellabee, oh my, yes, definitely the eyerolls are for the for the author (and the editor/proofreader) - a simple error on their part, but kinda a major boo boo if you want your recipe to be considered vegetarian. ;)

Back to wodke's post - An expanded list of what EYB ingredients may have hidden animal products, like pad Thai, would be useful to indexers, especially newbies. Tapenade is an ingredient that shows up a lot more nowadays, and it has anchovies (something I didn't know until I looked it up online much like wodke did for the pad Thai). I have used Worcestershire sauce for years, but until I started indexing I had no idea it contained anchovies - it was just that magic brown sauce that was in grandmas kitchen, mom's kitchen and mine. Worcestershire is on the list, but mayonnaise and Hollandaise sauce aren't - I know they have eggs - but does everyone? If you have never made them from scratch you might not. Expanding the list could save indexers and proofreaders time researching and correcting vegan/vegetarian errors.

-- Elizabeth

On the "taxing" question of classifying vegetarian/vegan.. we all know the indexing manual provides the following requirement:

More information about Vegan and Vegetarian recipes

anightowl;  Thanks for your response.  Interesting issue.  I suspect, however, that we'll just have to work it out for ourselves -- I can see that having rules for everything would be too complex.

I'm about three-quarters through the book I'm now indexing, and have been reviewing what I've done so far. I had accidentally added the tag 'Allergies' (in the Nutrition category) to one recipe.  As it happens, the author does mention in the headnotes that some people are allergic to the major ingredient of the dish, fava beans.  An unnerving coincidence, as it made me wonder for a moment if someone were indexing along with me...

I'm glad it happened, though, because I had not really noticed the existence of the tag before. Could we have a bit more explanation about when to apply it? 

Only three of the recipes on my bookshelf are so tagged, and two of those have a reference to "allergy-friendly" or some such in the recipe title. That makes sense, and title cases are clear-cut.  But the third recipe is in a book I can't easily check (in our local library), and it's not at all clear why the tag is applied; it's a hard-cooked egg topping, from The 60-Minute Gourmet by Pierre Franey.

Based on the two title examples, I assume the 'Allergies' tag is intended to help users find recipes designed to work around speciific allergens, and not to warn about allergenic ingredients. For one thing, there are so many of them, and they vary so much from person to person. Surely people wanting to avoid certain ingredients would use the minus symbol to exclude them from searches, rather than relying on cookbook authors to mention that ingredient allergies exist and on EYB indexers to apply the 'Allergies' tag.

That category is intended more for books than recipes - we have a few listed on EYB.  There are probably more that should be included but that would require someone going through all EYB books looking for trigger words then adding the categories.

It's hard to see why Garnish of hard-cooked eggs would require that category so I've removed it.  Individual recipes are unlikely to be tagged as Allergies, since that could in a sense apply to any recipe.  Is a recipe without peanuts specifically for someone who has that allergy and should be tagged as Allergies?  I think not.  As you say, it's better to select an ingredient you are allergic to, then change the tag from + to - to exclude the ingredient.  Unfortunately this does not work for egg and dairy allergies since we count eggs, milk and butter as store-cupboard ingredients.

We do have some exclusion tags for recipes such as Dairy-free, Egg-free and Gluten-free.  These are used when the book or author specifies the recipe as specifically for that exclusion.  So they aren't as helpful as they could be - e.g. every recipe that does not contain eggs is not listed as Egg-free.

Thanks for the clarification, Jane. Makes sense as a book category more than a recipe one.

I bet it was an error in the case of the Franey recipe, and I wonder if it happened in the same way it did to me -- using a trackpad on a notebook, taking the cursor back up the page after highlighting and entering 'Vegetarian', it's way too easy to brush over an entry near the top of the drop-down list and 'select' it.

That's why I review my indexing as many times as I can stand -- to catch the entries that result from mechanical error.

Thanks again for the response.

I am indexing a book on Tofu and several recipes use recipes elsewhere  as ingredients(s) in the book.  How do I deal with that? 

Rinshin -- The short answer is to index the ingredients for the required sub-recipe(s), but the full instructions can be found here in the indexing manual. There are exceptions, such as when the sub-recipe is a stock or is it is not a truly a sub-recipe, but an accompaniment. I would recommend taking a look over the linked instructions and then letting us know if you have any more questions.

Rinshin, anytime you (or any EYB member) have questions about indexing, please don't hesitate to email me directly: [email protected].  It's helpful to include the name of the book you're working on as well as your EYB username, and if you can send me a scan of the recipe or a link to the recipe if it's online along with your specific question, that would be great, too.