

Show HN: My cooking app that tells you what ingredients go well together - kbrower
http://www.ingredientpairings.com

======
Tyrannosaurs
Initial thoughts having not paid for the app but review screen shots and the
website.

Advanced warning - these comments aren't particularly positive. If you're
looking for a pep talk, look away now.

Let's start with first impressions before I dig into functionality and actual
results:

1) It needs to look nicer. People who like to cook tend to like things to look
appealing, particularly as a $1.99 app.

2) Garlic isn't a great example to have as your screen shot - it's not
inspiring and it's the sort of thing you have in a draw anyway, not something
you pick to make a meal out of. Try something more substantial and interesting
- Aubergine / Eggplant say (though the main point below relates to the result
for Egg plant).

3) Speaking personally, you need a vegetarian flag which culls all meat and
fish (or ideally options to remove meat, fish, poultry individually.)

All of that is simple to fix and you could possibly do in a day or so (most of
which would be tagging things as vegetarian or not).

Getting on to the actual results, your main problem is that your data sucks
_big time_ , as in unusable, pointless big time in it's current form.

Look at the screen shot which shows matches for garlic and includes
cornstarch.

Huh?

Cornstarch is a thickener, it goes with things you want to be thicker, it
doesn't go with things you don't want to be thicker. I have no idea why it
would or wouldn't go with garlic specifically (especially as garlic is solid
and therefore needs no thickening).

I'm guessing that you've automatically mined this data but however you've got
it you need a human to review it as I suspect that there are things in there
you have to cull because they make no sense and undermine the credibility of
the rest of the data.

Do a search on egg plant and you'll get among the results cornstarch, baking
powder, baking soda, black and white pepper (too common), salt (ditto), flour,
butter and vegetable oil. These are not things you match with an ingredient,
they're things you season, prepare or use to cook an ingredient. In terms of
what you're doing they're meaningless and should be hidden.

Again, that's all easily fixable, you just need to skim the data and pull
together an exclude list and edit these out of the results set.

But it then lists semi-sweet chocolate chips, banana, raisins and vanilla
extract. Now these may go with egg plant and there may be recipes that use
both but they're not natural matches (in the way that say tomatoes - not
including on the list incidentally - are). The average user is going to look
at them and go "seriously? what am I meant to cook with Egg Plant and Banana".

Fortunately you have a link for that. Sort of. Click on banana in the egg
plant results and you get a list of things that go with egg plant and banana
(same issues as above) but also a link to recipe puppy for those ingredients.
This is good in theory but have you looked at it?

Try it. The link is for egg (rather than egg plant) and banana. Not sure if
the issue is yours or recipe puppy's (though I think the later - plant is in
the URL). Even if it didn't drop the plant, recipe puppy thinks eggplant is
one word, you think it's two so they'd never match.

But worst of all, recipe puppy seems to do an "or" search rather than an "and"
one. In any case it certainly can't find me these supposed aubergine and
banana recipes which means I'm none the wiser as to what I'm meant to be
cooking and makes me ask again where the data is from.

Sorry to be harsh but I wouldn't be selling this in it's current form, I think
you're going to damage your brand if you don't work out some of these issues
before it gets out there and if that happens you're in the sort of trouble you
can't undo easily.

~~~
kbrower
Thanks for your feedback. I already added the exclusion list and definitely
will be working on my design and screenshots. I did have plans to add
vegetarian, vegan, and gluten free flags(I am also a vegetarian)

The problem with the "egg plant" search is that it is guessing the ingredient
incorrectly. Unfortunately, the data is not perfect and this does happen
sometimes. I fixed this instance, and continue to fix errors as I find them/
am told of them.

Recipe Pupppy does an "OR" search but the most relevant recipes do show up
first. Now that I fixed the error with "egg plant" being interpreted as "egg",
it will find the right recipes:
[http://www.recipepuppy.com/?i=egg+plant%2C+banana&q=eggp...](http://www.recipepuppy.com/?i=egg+plant%2C+banana&q=eggplant)

~~~
Shorel
Also for the paelo community: add a flag to exclude all grains and legumes and
some vegetable oils considered unsafe by us paleo-eaters.

Another option for keto/Atkins diet where all sugars and sweets get removed is
needed.

Don't think only vegans are picky about their food!

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jeremydavid
My initial thoughts on the results page is that they are not really intuitive,
and a bit hard to look at. Without reading the description, I was confused why
some were in caps, other's bold, etc.

It might be worthwhile to experiment with a font-size scaling cloud - it's
more intuitive. Instantly I would know tamarind paste goes really well with
chicken and coconut, and less so with tangerine.

It's an interesting idea though - I was looking for something like this the
other day when I had a bag of parsley I didn't know what to do with... but
unfortunately, like the other commenters are saying, if I had used it, I would
have been told I need to do something with breadcrumbs and butter, which isn't
really that helpful.

Keep working on it - I am keen to see how it unfolds.

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random42
Wow, If it works well, it is a boon for people who are not natural cooks, who
want to make something homemade, with the ingredients at home.

(I suppose/believe/hope this is a significant market size.)

I would like to know more about the algorithm/science, behind the pairings
(and its degree).

~~~
wvl
I was curious about this as well, as it looked to me like a ripoff of "The
Flavor Bible", by Page and Dornenburg (Same method of using bold all caps,
then bold, etc for showing the important ingredients). However, from the book
link, apparently: _The data for this book was obtained by programitally[SIC]
examining just under a million publicly available recipes._

That method of acquiring the data shows in the less useful results. For
example, with basil, it includes in the top pairings SALT, GARLIC, ONIONS,
BLACK PEPPER. Which, of course, would be found in pretty much any recipe
involving basil. Yet, it misses the more classic pairings like mozzarella
cheese, eggs, lamb, pizza, etc.

My recommendation -- buy "The Flavor Bible".

~~~
corin_
I'm not sure, when talking about what _ingredients_ go well together, you can
include "pizza" on the list :D

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dansingerman
Great idea, and nice execution.

Feature request: it would be great if not only it told you what would work
well, but also what to avoid.

------
dangravell
I've had it on my 'early stages ideas' board for a while for an app that
suggests replacement ingredients, groups of ingredients, or techniques. I
often have something in mind to cook and then realise at the last minute that
I have no parsley, white pepper, lemon juice (etc). Any thoughts on that?

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steamer25
Very cool idea. Off to a good start.

Suggestions: * I'd like an easy way to link to a related ingredient by itself.
I.e., If I initially search for basil, I'd like to easily rabbit trail to
olive oil, irrespective of basil. * It would be cool to also link through to
some of the matching recipes you've indexed.

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mihar
Hey, this is the missing part of my cooking web app, centered around
ingredients you have at home. This can become ultra powerful with some sort of
an API. Is there any?

~~~
kbrower
Yes: <http://www.recipepuppy.com/about/api/> If that doesn't fit your
requirements: <http://www.recipepuppy.com/about/contact>

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Zolomon
<http://www.ingredientpairings.com/?i=AQUA+REGIA> made me lol.

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tantadruj
If you make an easy translation page for all the ingredients this would
definitely be a bulls eye !!! Great app.

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warmfuzzykitten
Hmm. Caviar goes well with worcestershire sauce, but worcestershire sauce does
not go well with caviar.

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freshfey
Cool App! The only problem I see is with people who have bizarre taste. Other
than that, good stuff!

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duiker101
this app is total scam! First: graphics make me think it was done by an 8
years old child. Cooking is a great opportunity to show some amazing apps
designs. Second: they took an english dictionary, not even worried about
filtering only "cooking word" and made some results based on some wired fixed
algo.

<http://www.ingredientpairings.com/?i=grandma>

<http://www.ingredientpairings.com/?i=basketball>

<http://www.ingredientpairings.com/?i=japan>

<http://www.ingredientpairings.com/?i=space>

<http://www.ingredientpairings.com/?i=running>

<http://www.ingredientpairings.com/?i=diving>

i say SCAM.

~~~
kbrower
If it can't determine the ingredient it defaults to a keyword search :)

~~~
duiker101
not true <http://www.ingredientpairings.com/?i=sdfhgsfdh> and if it was true
it was scam anyway because would not suggest the correct ingredients.

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buro9
For the android version, could you put a QR code up for the download.

~~~
buro9
Hmmm... the android version just leads off to <http://www.foodguts.com/>

Both the original link and the above are powered by
<http://www.recipepuppy.com/>

Which of course, is still owned and operated by the submittee... but still, it
starts to make it feel like a link-farm. I'm a bit confused as to why you
don't just have a single URL for it all, some kind of coherent high level
interface to encapsulate it all.

~~~
kbrower
I have a lot of disjointed websites, because I like to make websites that do
one thing. I need to do a better job of bringing it all together.

The android app came before this website. I just haven't switched the link
over yet.

~~~
jonasb
You ought to link to
<https://market.android.com/details?id=com.foodguts.flavor> instead of
market://

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tariq
Nice job, works really well

~~~
tariq
Showed it to a non techie friend who loves to cook. Here's his amusing
feedback...

    
    
      foodnetwork has an app where u can search a recipe then make a shopping list  
      that's useful
      an app that spits out random ingredients based on a search term does not impress me so much 
      search the term 'poo' in this amazing app then 'pee' 
      then 'shit' 
      no i know that bacon goes well with everything....but c'mon now

~~~
ajays
"no i know that bacon goes well with everything"

Unless you're a vegetarian or vegan, of course. :-)

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fractallyte
One simple typo to correct on the front page: 'seperate' should be
'separate'...

