Recipes in Cooking are used to craft various types of consumables, most of which are food. Many of them are learned from Cooking trainers, but the majority is learned by using recipe-items. As an item, a recipe may be obtained as a reward for completing a Cooking quest, found as loot or purchased from a vendor. It is usually named in the format of [Recipe: <consumable>], such as [Recipe: Runn Tum Tuber Surprise]. Most cooking recipes use the picture of a scroll.
No cooking recipe is restricted to either the Horde or the Alliance, but some are much easier to obtain for one of them than the other. This has several reasons - a recipe may be sold by a single faction-aligned NPC, rewarded from a faction-aligned quest, or perhaps dropped in in a zone especially populated by a specific faction. Often, these recipes are available from a neutral auction house.
As of Pilgrim's Bounty (2009), the total number of recipes actually in the game was 169. With the recent implements of Cataclysm, the number of recipes increased to 202 with the additional three new recipes from Cooking Trainers, two Feasts from guild achievements, and 28 from new Cooking Dailies. For new players, however, the number of obtainable recipes is slightly less; not only were the quests yielding some recipes removed in 4.0.3a, some vendors selling recipes were also removed due to change to their location (some of these recipes returned in 4.0.6). In addition, one recipe turned out to be bugged and was removed shortly after the expansion launched to be worked on (it later returned in 4.0.6 as well). Some others were returned in 4.1.0. 4.2.0 removed another recipe and returned two more, which places the number of recipes currently available to new chefs (non-Rogues, see below) at 200. Also, keep in mind that some recipes are only available during seasonal events.
As of patch 4.2.0 - which removed one recipe - it's possible to know 202 cooking recipes at most. Non-Rogues are effectively limited to one less, since new copies of [Recipe: Thistle Tea] have been BoP since patch 1.3.0.
Nearly every recipe in Cooking is classified as "Food and drink". [Feathered Lure] is the only exception, being classified as "Other". The Cooking Fire is neither of them, being a separate ability.
Note: Recipes marked with are very difficult or impossible to acquire. It is unlikely that the player will be able to learn them. This may change for each individual recipe.
R1 - Instructor Ulooaka / Rolm75 R2 - Instructor Ulooaka / Rolm85 R3 - World Quests Work Order: Abyssal-Fried Rissole / Work Order: Bil'Tong / Work Order: Fragrant Kakavia / Work Order: Baked Port Tato