The Kitchen Fieldbook · Restaurant SOP & Documentation

Self-Assessment · One Recipe

The Gap Finder

Paste one recipe exactly as it sits in your file — run-together columns, shorthand, and all. The finder marks the words that need a human allergen decision, and the fields a standardized record carries that are not in the text.

It looks for words tied to the nine major U.S. allergens: milk, egg, fish, crustacean shellfish, tree nuts, peanuts, wheat, soy, and sesame. A few more that kitchens often declare are listed separately.

0 CHARS

Nothing you paste leaves this browser — no upload, no form, no storage. The finder runs entirely on this page.

Ctrl + Enter (Cmd + Enter on a Mac) runs it from the text box. The example is the green curry paste from the sample work, exactly as it was found.

Findings

NOT YET RUN

This is a record, not a determination. The finder flags terms that require a human allergen decision and fields it could not find in the text. It never clears a recipe, and a clean result is not an absence of allergens — only an absence of the words it knows.

Paste one recipe and choose “Find the gaps”. Candidate allergen terms, the fields that are not in the text, and anything that reads as wrong will be listed here, with line numbers.

This is a record, not a determination. The finder flags terms that require a human allergen decision and fields it could not find in the text. It never clears a recipe, and a clean result is not an absence of allergens — only an absence of the words it knows.

Next

Take the 16-question audit

What the finder reads, and what it cannot

Allergen terms

Words tied to the nine major U.S. allergens, including named cheeses, fish species, and the sauces and pastes that carry them: fish sauce, soy sauce, shrimp paste, pesto. A term split across two lines by a run-together layout still counts.

Terms are matched in English, plus common Spanish kitchen words.

Plant milks and nut butters, non-wheat flours, and look-alikes such as butternut, eggplant, nutmeg, and water chestnut are set aside. The nut, grain, or bean in them still counts.

It reads words, not labels. A brand of stock, sauce, or spice blend can carry an allergen its name does not show, and the finder does not read negation: “nut-free” still flags nuts.

Also worth a decision

  • Molluscs Oysters, clams, squid and the like are not among the nine U.S. majors. Many kitchens declare them alongside shellfish — decide.
  • Coconut The FDA no longer lists coconut as a tree nut; many kitchens still declare it — decide.
  • Oats Oats are not wheat, but are often grown and milled alongside it — decide on gluten cross-contact.
  • Soba Buckwheat noodles are often part wheat — check the pack.
  • Mustard Not among the nine U.S. majors; a priority allergen in Canada and the EU — decide.

Fields a standardized record carries

Recipe number or code
One name per product; the number is what other documents reference.
Version or revision
Makes the current version unambiguous, and lets an incomplete recipe stay visible without being trusted.
Yield or batch size
The input that costing and menu engineering both depend on.
Portion count
Without it, a batch cost cannot become a cost per portion.
Allergen declaration
Stated affirmatively, including when none are present.
Station
Tells you whose prep list this belongs on.
Shelf life
Drives labeling and rotation.
Written method
Executable under pressure by someone who has not made it before.
Cost fields
Feed the costing standard without a separate transcription step.

The finder reads by pattern, so it says “appears present” or “not found in the text” — never “missing” for certain.

Signals

Empty or missing method
A method heading with nothing under it. The dish exists only in one person’s head, and leaves when they do.
Unresolved author’s notes
Question marks and placeholders left in the text. The uncertainty is inherited by whoever cooks it next.
Inconsistent units and scales
Metric and U.S. units, or Celsius and Fahrenheit, in one recipe. Scaling errors, slow costing, conversion mistakes under pressure.
Declaration contradicts the text
The declaration says none, but the text contains terms that need an allergen decision.
Bare number
A number with no unit, in a list where the other quantities carry one. A count, or a weight? The two readings can differ several times over.
Unquantified amounts
Cannot be costed or repeated exactly. Sometimes deliberate — a standardized record can keep “to taste”, but says so on purpose.

The first three are named as in the failure modes of the sample work.