How can I make a recipe to output an OreDictionary item?

This thing doesn't work

GameRegistry.addRecipe(new ShapedOreRecipe(new ItemStack("ingotCopper"), new Object[]{"XXX", "XXX", "XXX", 'X', AEItems.iron_essence}));

you'd need to  load the list of items registered as ingotCopper and use one of the results.. So for copper ingots, to get the list you'd use OreDictionary.getOres("ingotCopper") ..this returns an ArrayList you can go through and set preference or w/e or just return first result..

Ok so I made the List:

List<ItemStack> copper = OreDictionary.getOres("ingotCopper");

And here is the recipe code:

GameRegistry.addRecipe(new ShapedOreRecipe(copper, new Object[]{"XXX", "XXX", "XXX", 'X', AEItems.iron_essence}));

The problem is I'm not very good at java and I don't understand exactly what I need to do.

If you want to give me an example that works would be awesome.

We're dissuaded from teaching basic Java things here, but you need to reference an item in the list..you're trying to use the entire list..so if you're wanting the first item returned, you'd need to use get(), so:

 

ItemStack copper = OreDictionary.getOres("ingotCopper").get(0);

 

but you'd really need to encase this whole functionality with a check for if there is even anything in the list of ingotCopper

TL;DR you can't return a generic OreDict item.  You must choose one of them.