Cookery

A food science knowledge base powered by Claude Code. Type casual descriptions, get Michelin-caliber recipes back — precise to the gram, grounded in real food science from 30+ books.

No code, no dependencies. Just markdown files + Claude Code slash commands + git.

How It Works

One file (food-knowledge.md) contains distilled food science from books like Lopez-Alt's The Food Lab, McGee's On Food and Cooking, Nosrat's Salt Fat Acid Heat, and 25+ others. When you run a command, Claude reads this file into context — it activates deep knowledge that produces much better output than a generic "make me a recipe" request.

Recipes are saved as .md files. You iterate on them in conversation. Git tracks everything.

Commands

Command	Example	What it does
/cook	/cook chicken thighs 1.52 lbs, brine, pan cook, simple spices	Full recipe with science notes. Saves to recipes/
/quick	/quick cucumber salad with dill	Terse recipe — ingredient table + steps, nothing else
/adjust	/adjust swap pine nuts for walnuts, scale to 4 servings	Edit the active recipe file in place
/save-recipe	/save-recipe	Mark recipe as final, git commit
/find-recipe	/find-recipe carbonara	Search saved recipes by name, ingredient, or technique
/cook-view	/cook-view	Generate a standalone HTML cooking guide with phased mise en place
/save	/save	Git add + commit + push everything

Typical Workflow

> /cook dry-aged NY strip 500g, cast iron, butter baste, garlic thyme

  → Claude reads food-knowledge.md
  → Generates recipe with precise temps, times, grams
  → Saves to recipes/2026-02-14-butter-basted-ny-strip.md

> /adjust add a pan sauce with shallot and red wine

  → Updates the same file with a new sauce section

> /adjust scale to 4 people

  → Recalculates all quantities in the file

> /save-recipe

  → Marks as Final, commits to git

Cook View — HTML Cooking Guides

/cook-view turns any recipe into a standalone, dark-themed HTML cooking guide designed for a kitchen screen or TV. No JS, no build step — just a single .html file you can open in any browser.

What it generates:

• Phased mise en place — ingredients grouped by when you need them, not dumped in one list
• Side-by-side cards for parallel tasks (e.g., "salt the steak" + "make pasta dough" at the same time)
• Time badges on each phase so you know where you are in the cook
• Callout boxes for food safety warnings, technique tips, and phase completion markers
• Temperature badges inline with instructions

Example: See guides/valentines-dinner-for-two-guide.html — a 4-course dinner broken into 5 timed phases.

Project Structure

cookery/
├── CLAUDE.md              # Agent personality, rules, recipe format
├── food-knowledge.md      # The brain — 30+ books, 10 food science categories
├── .claude/
│   ├── settings.local.json
│   └── commands/          # 7 slash commands
├── recipes/               # Saved recipes (YYYY-MM-DD-slug.md)
├── guides/                # Generated HTML cooking guides
└── README.md

Knowledge Categories

The knowledge file covers:

1. Cooking science — heat transfer, Maillard, thermodynamics
2. Protein mastery — meat, poultry, fish, eggs
3. Seasoning & spice — salt by weight, bloom timing, blending
4. Salads & dressings — vinaigrettes, emulsions, raw prep
5. Brining & marinating — wet/dry brine, salt penetration rates
6. Fermentation — lacto, koji, miso, vinegar
7. Baking science — flour, gluten, leavening, dough
8. Fresh pasta — ratios, kneading, rolling, shape-to-sauce pairing
9. Food safety — temps, danger zone, pasteurization tables
10. Flavor pairing — volatile compounds, bridging, contrast
11. Sauce architecture — mother sauces, pan sauces, emulsions
12. Steak science — dry-aging, reverse sear, butter baste

Setup

1. Clone this repo
2. Open the folder in Claude Code
3. Run /cook with whatever you want to make