Halal recipes from whatever's in your fridge

The recipe that was fine until step six

Most Western recipe writing assumes wine in the pan, bacon in the base and gelatine in the dessert. Cooking halal from those recipes means reading each one to the end before you can trust it, then working out a substitution for the step that broke it.

Grublin writes the recipe without those steps. Set halal once and Grub deglazes with stock, starts the sauce with onions rather than lardons, and sets the dessert with agar, without being asked.

What the check catches

Pork in every form. Pork, pig, bacon, ham, gammon, prosciutto, pancetta, guanciale, chorizo, pepperoni, salami, lardons, lard.

Alcohol as an ingredient. Wine, beer, ale, lager, stout, cider, brandy, rum, vodka, whisky, bourbon, gin, sherry, port, marsala, vermouth, mirin, sake, liqueurs, kirsch, cognac, prosecco, champagne, grappa, schnapps, amaretto. "Cooks off" is not an exception; if it's in the ingredients, the recipe fails.

Gelatine. Flagged outright. Beef gelatine can be halal, but the check cannot tell which kind a recipe means, so it errs on the side of rewriting.

Allowed through. Wine vinegar, red and white wine vinegar, rice wine vinegar, cider vinegar and apple cider vinegar, which are widely held permissible; ginger ale, ginger beer and root beer, which are soft drinks; anything marked non-alcoholic or alcohol-free.

If a forbidden term appears in the finished recipe, Grub asks for another and you only see the one that passed.

What the check does not catch

This is the important part.

• Certification. Grublin cannot know whether the chicken in your fridge is halal-slaughtered. A recipe that says "chicken thighs" is halal only if your chicken is. That is between you and your supplier, as it always was.
• Non-pork animal derivatives in products. Rennet, some emulsifiers, flavourings in packaged goods. The check reads ingredient names in the recipe, not labels on packets.
• Alcohol in extracts and products. Vanilla extract, some soy sauces and mustards contain alcohol and are not flagged by name. Choose the versions you are comfortable with.
• Schools of thought. Views differ on vinegar, on alcohol that cooks off, and on gelatine sources. Grublin takes the stricter line on alcohol and gelatine and the permissive line on vinegar. If your practice differs, add terms under dislikes to tighten it.

Halal and something else

• Halal and gluten-free. Set both. Beer is excluded twice over.
• Halal and dairy-free. Set both and ghee and butter go with the pork.
• Halal and low-carb or high-protein. Those are steered rather than re-checked; Grub leans into grilled meats, pulses and vegetables and you verify the carbs.
• Halal with a nut allergy. Set tree nuts and the almonds come out of the biryani.

What you'll actually cook

Grub writes from what's in your fridge or what you fancy. Halal plus your cuisines and spice level tends towards grilled and roasted chicken and lamb, curries and biryanis, kebabs and koftas, rice dishes, stews finished with stock and lemon rather than wine, tagines, pasta with tomato sauces, tray bakes, soups and salads. Say "I fancy a carbonara" and it comes back with smoked turkey or mushrooms rather than guanciale.

Set your kit as well, so a halal slow cooker lamb is written for the slow cooker.