If the recipe is for 4 people do I just auomaticately half all the amounts of each of the ingredients in the recipe? Are there any exceptions

Mary Brinkmeyer
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3 Comments

RobertaJ December 22, 2011
I can vouch first-hand for what Amanda wrote. About 2 months ago, I made a pot roast that braised in the oven at a fairly high temperature for several hours. The meat was supposed to braise in a fairly large amount of wine and beef broth. Since the recipe was for 6, and I was cooking just for me, I cut everything in half. What I didn't realize was that the heat & time were constant, even with the smaller volume of liquid. As a result, my sauce way over reduced, and in order to keep it from totally evaporating and burning the roast, I had to keep adding more beef broth. Which totally diluted the flavor and made the sauce a bit (a lot) weak and sort of insipid. Lesson learned.......
 
Jain S. December 21, 2011
In general you should be OK but if baking, you might run into trouble
 
Amanda H. December 21, 2011
Sorry for what might seem like an annoying answer, but it really depends on the recipe. If it's a salad, halving everything usually works well, but something like stew doesn't because the liquid amounts don't always exactly halve, depending on how the meat is cut. If you tell us what you're making, we can make a specific recommendation.
 
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