Can't type an apostrophe.
' breaks it.
Show HN: I built a no-BS recipe search engine
101–110 of 218 posts
Re: Show HN: I built a no-BS recipe search engine
#102Great tool to improve the dismal experience of searching recipes online. To intrepid cooks I encourage getting a good cookbook, e.g. from Julia Child or Mark Bittman – where you can learn cooking fundamentals and techniques aimed to teach you how to cook self-sufficiently. Break away from recipes and you’ll be dancing around your kitchen to your own culinary tune instead of recreating mediocre click bait.
I highly recommend Ratio by Michael Ruhlmann. So far I've only used it for basic doughs, cakes, biscuits. Learn the ratios, and why they're like that. Very liberating.
Re: Show HN: I built a no-BS recipe search engine
#103Great tool to improve the dismal experience of searching recipes online. To intrepid cooks I encourage getting a good cookbook, e.g. from Julia Child or Mark Bittman – where you can learn cooking fundamentals and techniques aimed to teach you how to cook self-sufficiently. Break away from recipes and you’ll be dancing around your kitchen to your own culinary tune instead of recreating mediocre click bait.
I highly recommend Ratio by Michael Ruhlmann. So far I've only used it for basic doughs, cakes, biscuits. Learn the ratios, and why they're like that. Very liberating.
This is basically all professional baking/pastry, also cooking in ultra-high end restaurants.
And yes, it's a much better way of doing things, plus helps you to think about the effect of each ingredient on the outcome.
Re: Show HN: I built a no-BS recipe search engine
#104I love the idea, but the first recipe I clicked happened to be from the New York times and they have this BS that I need to create an account to read the recipe. Still, your tool helped me find it, so it is a win.
Re: Show HN: I built a no-BS recipe search engine
#105Great tool to improve the dismal experience of searching recipes online. To intrepid cooks I encourage getting a good cookbook, e.g. from Julia Child or Mark Bittman – where you can learn cooking fundamentals and techniques aimed to teach you how to cook self-sufficiently. Break away from recipes and you’ll be dancing around your kitchen to your own culinary tune instead of recreating mediocre click bait.
This! Cookbooks have editors, and the recipes are tested so they can be made with common ingredients. They want cooks to be successful! Oddly I've found cookbook recipes to ALWAYS be better than online recipes. Book recipes tend to be shorter, clearer, and more successful. Online recipes are okay but sometimes don't come out the way I'd expect, they're more fiddly. It's great to have options!
The barrier to publishing online is lower, so recipes are always hit or miss. Really depends on the author.
Re: Show HN: I built a no-BS recipe search engine
#106Great idea! But please read https://www.evanmiller.org/how-not-to-sort-by-average-rating...
Ha! Thanks for this. I knew that this must be a solved problem but wasn't searching for the right thing. I'll take a look at implementing a better default sort order.
You need multiple rating systems for recipes and the lack of that model is why recipe sites are bullshit, and will continue to be bullshit.
A recipe that tastes bad should never be shown to anyone. But if there are two flavorful recipes and one of them has better instructions, then that's the one that should be sorted to the top. My go-to analogy for people being bad at documentation is to compare them to the variation in quality in cooking recipes. That's both a commentary on developer docs and on chef's docs.
I have been reworking a highly rated pie recipe. They have not covered browning the crust. They have made no mention of order and grouping of ingredients. If you follow the recipe literally, you're going to end up with a fluffy mix that won't fit in the pie tin. You're also going to get lumpy spices. That has a rustic appeal, but as the picture does not have lumps, the author is just bad at documentation. In my version, I split the spices so that you get a little texture but most are homogenized. I'm still experimenting with number of eggs. I've had 2 eggs (as in the recipe) taste eggy, and 3 eggs (minus a little egg white for the crust) taste fine, depending on how good the emulsion is, and that depends on order.
Most recipes still seem to be built on a model of fear and social barter. Fear that if Aunt Susie figures out Grandma Beth's brownie recipe, then nobody will 'have' to invite Grandma Beth to holidays or at least be excited to see her. If you want brownies then you need Grandma Beth.
Re: Show HN: I built a no-BS recipe search engine
#107Earlier quoted context omitted.
As someone who lived in the US for 8 years... How much is a cup?
Let me know then next time you pay for a kilogram of petrol at the pump. Some things make more sense to measure by volume, others by weight. This is disjoint from imperial vs metric.
Yes, it makes more sense to measure something fluid by volume when it doesn't fit on a scale.
Also, the fact that gasoline pumps are pressurised and standardise the volume based on a certain temperature should be a clue to one pitfall of volume-based measurements.
Re: Show HN: I built a no-BS recipe search engine
#108I love the idea, but the first recipe I clicked happened to be from the New York times and they have this BS that I need to create an account to read the recipe. Still, your tool helped me find it, so it is a win.
Disable Javascript for the site. Fixes the problem. Or run it through Outline.com
Re: Show HN: I built a no-BS recipe search engine
#109I searched for flan and the first two results were for pumpkin flan and then almond flan but the rest of the recipes were for flank steak.
Re: Show HN: I built a no-BS recipe search engine
#110Great tool to improve the dismal experience of searching recipes online. To intrepid cooks I encourage getting a good cookbook, e.g. from Julia Child or Mark Bittman – where you can learn cooking fundamentals and techniques aimed to teach you how to cook self-sufficiently. Break away from recipes and you’ll be dancing around your kitchen to your own culinary tune instead of recreating mediocre click bait.
This! Cookbooks have editors, and the recipes are tested so they can be made with common ingredients. They want cooks to be successful! Oddly I've found cookbook recipes to ALWAYS be better than online recipes. Book recipes tend to be shorter, clearer, and more successful. Online recipes are okay but sometimes don't come out the way I'd expect, they're more fiddly. It's great to have options!
There is something to be said for cooking shows as well. Certain activities take time, and they end up editorializing things that they wouldn't think of with just the written word. What order to mix things. Common substitutions. How to avoid pitfalls (use this tool for this step, not this other one) and fix problems.
Example: too much salt in your soup? Add a little potato starch.