You dismiss the challenges of finding a single recipe by mentioning you find several and combine them? That completely defeats the purpose of a recipe. You're literally creating your own recipe at that stage.
Finding several to combine should be harder than finding any single one of those represented among the several.
As far as the purpose of a recipe, it still informs me of the ingredients and amounts so I can make a reasonable approximation. Say I want to cook chili, something that there seems to be innumerable recipes for. And say I want to add beans to mine, though my personal recipe doesn't normally include beans. So how many beans should I add? And what kind of beans should I add? Well if I check the top 5 recipes for chili with beans and see that 4 of them use kidney beans and that they tend to use 1 cup per pound of meat average, I can now modify my own recipe in a more informed fashion. This also works for cooking something when I don't know where to begin.
As far as the purpose of a recipe, it still informs me of the ingredients and amounts so I can make a reasonable approximation. Say I want to cook chili, something that there seems to be innumerable recipes for. And say I want to add beans to mine, though my personal recipe doesn't normally include beans. So how many beans should I add? And what kind of beans should I add? Well if I check the top 5 recipes for chili with beans and see that 4 of them use kidney beans and that they tend to use 1 cup per pound of meat average, I can now modify my own recipe in a more informed fashion. This also works for cooking something when I don't know where to begin.