Dishes and Recipes

Managing your dishes is at the heart of ChinaYung. This is where you define what goes into each dish, track allergens automatically, and optionally let AI generate descriptions for your menu. Every change you make here flows through to your published menu and chatbot in real time.

Dishes Overview

The dishes list gives you a complete view of everything on your menu, along with the current allergen status of each dish. At a glance you can see which dishes are fully verified, which still need attention, and how many ingredients each one contains.

Dishes are organized by category (starters, mains, desserts, etc.). Each row shows the dish name, number of mapped ingredients, and a colored allergen status indicator:

• Green — All 14 EU allergens checked, all ingredients verified.
• Yellow — Some ingredients are still unverified or missing allergen data.
• Red — Critical allergen information is missing.

Tip: Sort by allergen status to quickly find dishes that still need your attention before publishing.

Dish Details

Select any dish to open its detail view. Here you see the full ingredient list with quantities and units, along with the computed allergen profile and nutritional values.

The detail view is split into several tabs:

• Ingredients — Every ingredient with its quantity, unit, and supplier reference.
• Allergens — The 14 EU allergens, computed automatically from the ingredient data.
• Nutrition — Per-serving nutritional breakdown (energy, fat, carbohydrates, protein, salt).
• Description — Dish descriptions in one or more languages.

Tip: The ingredient list is the single source of truth. If you update an ingredient’s allergen data on the Ingredients page, every dish using that ingredient updates automatically.

Adding Ingredients to a Dish

To build or modify a recipe, use the ingredient search within the dish detail view.

Step-by-step

1. Open the dish you want to edit.
2. Click Add Ingredient at the bottom of the ingredient list.
3. Start typing the ingredient name. ChinaYung searches your verified ingredient database and suggests matches.
4. Select the correct ingredient from the results.
5. Enter the quantity used per serving.
6. Choose the unit (grams, milliliters, pieces, etc.).
7. Click Save.

The dish’s allergen profile and nutritional values recalculate immediately.

Tip: If an ingredient does not appear in search results, you need to add it first via the Ingredients page. ChinaYung only allows verified ingredients to be linked to dishes.

Removing or Adjusting Ingredients

• To change a quantity, click the value directly in the ingredient row and edit it inline.
• To remove an ingredient, click the delete icon at the end of the row and confirm.

Components and Base Recipes

Some dishes consist of multiple parts — for example, dumplings have dough and filling. ChinaYung supports this with the Component System:

Nested Recipes

A dish can consist of multiple components, each with its own ingredient list:

• Example Dumplings: Dough component (flour, water, salt) + Filling component (pork, ginger, spring onions)
• Example Spring Rolls: Wrapper component + Vegetable filling

Base Recipes

Frequently used components can be created as base recipes and reused across multiple dishes:

• Breading, pizza dough, hollandaise sauce, etc.
• A change to a base recipe automatically updates all dishes that use it
• Allergens and nutrition are automatically recalculated

Weight per Piece

With gram_per_piece you can define the weight per piece (e.g. 25g per dumpling). This allows the system to calculate exact portion sizes and nutrition per serving rather than per total recipe.

Tip: Components are especially useful for cuisines with many assembled dishes — such as Chinese, Italian, or Middle Eastern cuisine.

Automatic Allergen Calculation

One of ChinaYung’s core features is fully automatic allergen computation. You never need to manually tag allergens on a dish — the system derives them from the ingredient data.

How It Works

1. Each ingredient in your database carries verified allergen flags for all 14 EU allergens (gluten, crustaceans, eggs, fish, peanuts, soybeans, milk, nuts, celery, mustard, sesame, sulphites, lupin, molluscs).
2. When you assign ingredients to a dish, ChinaYung combines all allergen flags using logical OR — if any single ingredient contains an allergen, the dish is flagged for it.
3. The result is displayed in the Allergens tab of the dish detail view.

Allergen Status Levels

• Contains — At least one ingredient definitively contains this allergen.
• May contain (traces) — At least one ingredient has a trace warning for this allergen.
• Free — No ingredient in the dish contains or may contain this allergen.

Tip: Allergen accuracy depends entirely on your ingredient data. Make sure every ingredient has been verified against its label. ChinaYung treats the product label as the ultimate source of truth.

AI Descriptions (PRO)

On the PRO plan, ChinaYung can automatically generate appealing dish descriptions for your menu. These descriptions are created by AI based on the dish name, ingredients, and category.

Generating Descriptions

1. Open the dish detail view and switch to the Description tab.
2. Click Generate with AI.
3. ChinaYung produces a description in your primary language. On PRO plans with multi-language enabled, descriptions are generated in all configured languages (DE, EN, ZH).
4. Review and edit the text if needed, then save.

Generated descriptions are stored per language and can be edited freely after generation.

Tip: If you want the AI to adopt a specific tone or highlight certain aspects of a dish, use Chef Notes (see below). The AI takes your notes into account when generating descriptions.

Chef Notes

Chef Notes let you attach custom hints and instructions that the AI uses when generating descriptions or when the chatbot answers questions about a dish. Think of them as a private briefing for the AI.

Adding Chef Notes

1. Open the dish detail view.
2. Find the Chef Notes text area below the description section.
3. Type your notes in free text. For example:

• „This is our signature dish, highlight the homemade chili oil.“
• „The pork is slow-cooked for 8 hours.“
• „Recommend pairing with jasmine rice.“

1. Save your changes.

Chef Notes are never shown to guests directly. They are used internally by:

• The AI description generator to produce more accurate, personalized descriptions.
• The chatbot to give better answers when guests ask about specific dishes.

Tip: Chef Notes are available on all plans. Even on the FREE plan, you can prepare notes for later use when you upgrade to PRO and unlock AI descriptions.