Cooking for a crowd

This time of year, a lot of cooking happens in big batches. Chili for the whole family, a double pot of mulled cider, stuffing for twelve. Multiplying the ingredients is the easy part, as long as you own a pot big enough. The seasoning is trickier, because a doubled recipe often tastes a little different from the version you know: hotter or more clove-forward in some spots, flatter in others.

Salt and the gentle spices

Salt scales close to evenly. If the original pot takes a teaspoon, the doubled pot will need about two. The same goes for mellow spices like cumin, coriander, sweet paprika, and most dried herbs. Multiply them along with the recipe and you'll land close to where you started.

Heat and the strong aromatics

Chile, Cloves, Turkish Bay Leaf, Cinnamon, and Allspice are a different story. A little of each goes a long way to begin with, and a bigger pot usually simmers longer and loses less liquid along the way, so whole spices like cloves and bay have more time to steep. When you double the recipe, these tend to come through stronger than they did in the original.

A good starting point is about one and a half times the original amount. Taste once the pot has simmered for a while, then add more if it needs it.

Blends

With a blend, the spices inside are already balanced against each other, so you're adjusting one tin instead of five. That makes scaling simpler, with one catch: you can't hold back just the clove or just the chile, because they're mixed in with everything else.

For mellow or herby blends like Vadouvan Curry or Italian Herbs, scale them with the recipe the way you'd scale salt. For a blend with real heat, or one heavy on cinnamon and clove, like Jerk Seasoning or Kashmiri Garam Masala, give it the same treatment as the strong single spices. Start around one and a half times, taste, and add from there.

A few rules of thumb

1. Scale salt and gentle spices with the recipe.
2. Start heat, strong aromatics, and bold blends at about one and a half times when you double, then build up.
3. Do your last round of tasting near the end, once the pot has cooked down to the way you'll serve it, and add in small steps.

Your crowd dish

What do you make when the guest list gets long? Tell us in Cooks Club, especially if you've worked out how to scale it. Someone out there is about to triple a recipe for the first time, and your notes could save their pot.

Share your crowd dish

However many people end up at your table this month, we hope there's enough to go around, with a little left over for tomorrow.

- World Spice