Many-to-many mapping table

Solution 1:

Do this on your DbContext OnModelCreating:

protected override void OnModelCreating(DbModelBuilder modelBuilder)
{    
    modelBuilder.Entity<Recipe>()
        .HasMany(x => x.Members)
        .WithMany(x => x.Recipes)
    .Map(x =>
    {
        x.ToTable("Cookbooks"); // third table is named Cookbooks
        x.MapLeftKey("RecipeId");
        x.MapRightKey("MemberId");
    });
}

You can do it the other way around too, it's the same, just another side of the same coin:

modelBuilder.Entity<Member>()
    .HasMany(x => x.Recipes)
    .WithMany(x => x.Members)
.Map(x =>
{
  x.ToTable("Cookbooks"); // third table is named Cookbooks
  x.MapLeftKey("MemberId");
  x.MapRightKey("RecipeId");
});

Further examples:

http://www.ienablemuch.com/2011/07/using-checkbox-list-on-aspnet-mvc-with_16.html

http://www.ienablemuch.com/2011/07/nhibernate-equivalent-of-entity.html

UPDATE

To prevent cyclical reference on your Author property, aside from above, you need to add this:

modelBuilder.Entity<Recipe>()
    .HasRequired(x => x.Author)
    .WithMany()
    .WillCascadeOnDelete(false);

Idea sourced here: EF Code First with many to many self referencing relationship

The core thing is, you need to inform EF that the Author property(which is a Member instance) has no Recipe collections(denoted by WithMany()); that way, cyclical reference could be stopped on Author property.

These are the created tables from the Code First mappings above:

CREATE TABLE Members(
    Id int IDENTITY(1,1) NOT NULL primary key,
    Name nvarchar(128) NOT NULL
);


CREATE TABLE Recipes(
    Id int IDENTITY(1,1) NOT NULL primary key,
    Name nvarchar(128) NOT NULL,
    AuthorId int NOT NULL references Members(Id)
);


CREATE TABLE Cookbooks(
    RecipeId int NOT NULL,
    MemberId int NOT NULL,
    constraint pk_Cookbooks primary key(RecipeId,MemberId)
);