Ask for a family recipe and you may receive a perfectly complete answer for someone who already knows how to make it.
“Some flour, enough liquid, and the usual pan. You’ll know when it’s ready.”
The cook isn’t necessarily being secretive. They may be noticing and adjusting things they no longer think to explain. The useful part of writing down the recipe is getting some of that judgment onto the page along with the ingredients.
Start with one dish you would actually like to make. It can belong to a relative, a friend, or someone who has fed you often enough to feel like family. There is no need to assemble an entire cookbook before you learn the potatoes.
Ask to make it together
Choose a time when the cook is willing to explain what they’re doing. The middle of preparing dinner for sixteen people may not be that time.
“Could we make this together sometime? I’d like to write down how you do it so I can make it myself” is a clear request. You can offer to bring ingredients or do the washing up. If you want to record part of the process, ask first. A conversation in the kitchen needn’t become a video they didn’t agree to appear in.
Let them make their usual version before suggesting improvements. You might eventually prefer less sugar or a different herb. First, find out what gives this version the taste you were trying to keep.
Record what “the usual” means
Write down the ingredient, amount, and how it is prepared before it goes in. “One onion” leaves out a useful step if it needs to be finely chopped. A cup used for coffee may not be the same size as the measuring cup in your kitchen.
If the cook uses a handful, ask whether you can measure that amount before it goes in. A kitchen scale can be useful if there is one available. Keep the original description beside the measurement rather than pretending one observed handful is an exact rule for every batch.
Note the pan’s size, the oven setting, the order of the steps, and how much the recipe makes. Record additions made along the way, too. The extra splash after stirring belongs in your notes, even if it never made the spoken ingredient list.
Most importantly, ask what prompted the adjustment. “What are you looking for before you add more?” can tell you something a quantity alone won’t. Perhaps the mixture should hold its shape or spread slowly when the spoon lifts. Write the answer in words you understand, and take a picture of that stage if it would help.
Give the next cook a chance to succeed
Read the draft as though you have never watched the dish being made. “Prepare the filling” is quite an ambitious instruction if the filling hasn’t been explained.
Separate the steps where order matters. Make clear when an ingredient is divided between two uses. Keep useful details beside the step they belong to, rather than in a paragraph at the bottom where someone will discover them after doing it wrong.
Then, if you can, make the dish from your notes. Having the original cook nearby is useful, but let the page guide you until you reach something it doesn’t explain. Those questions show you what is missing. Add the answers while you still remember where you got stuck.
If you’re recreating a dish from an old card and nobody can clarify it, mark your guesses as guesses. Keep the original wording and record what you tried separately. A successful adaptation is worth keeping without presenting it as exactly how someone else cooked.
Keep a little of the person in it
The Library of Congress’s suggestions for collecting family recipes include photographing handwritten originals and retaining the cook’s asides. A typed page can be easier to follow while the original still carries something you want to keep.
Add the cook’s name and, if they know it, where the recipe came from. A brief note about when they made it or why they changed an ingredient is enough. You may discover that the famous family recipe began on the back of a package. It can still be the dish everyone asks that person to bring.
You can use Notes for Next Time to keep track of your first attempt, then put the finished recipe somewhere you will actually find it. Send a copy to the cook and to anyone they are happy to share it with.
The next time someone asks how to make it, there will be something useful to hand over. “Use the usual pan” can stay as a note, with the dimensions underneath.