Cook the reference meal, then tell me what it gave you
Every character has a fixed personal offset. It's the only part of the calculation that differs between players, and this is how you measure it.
value = bear 16 + corn 44 + frying pan 75 + oven 40 = 175 → 175 mod 138 = 37
Your offset
Pick the affinity you were given.
Hardware
The heat source and the vessel both contribute.
Ingredients
Chopping, dicing and grinding all add 16; mashing and mincing add 32; salting or freshening subtracts 128. Each ingredient only offers the preparations the game's recipes attest for it — brandy cannot be mashed.
Where the number comes from
Name the dish and the affinity you want
All 581 recipes from the game. The solver fills the compulsory ingredients, then works out which optional ones land you on the affinity.
Compulsory ingredients
The recipe won't work without these. Where it accepts a family, pick which one you're using.
Optional ingredients the solver may use
Untick a family to keep it off the dish. Fewer families means longer recipes, and some affinities become unreachable.