This is great, but it seems to be missing the requisite 5000 word backstory detailing the author's summer trips to their grandma's farmhouse where the recipe originated or the vacation to a foreign land where the author had a personal encounter with the dish's chef who, after much cajoling, revealed the secret recipe. Without the backstory, each recipe feels ungrounded and detached from time, place, and even reality itself.
My particular favourite of this genre is "Maple Shortbread Bars" from The New York Times which starts with the opening "Shortly after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001"
https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1017089-maple-shortbread...
Very minor point, in the grand scheme of things: when converting measurements from imperial to metric, I would be astonished if many recipes need more than two significant figures. When the recipe says "391.32 gram strained greek yogurt" I would not expect disaster to befall me if I only supplied 391.31g.
A more major point is that I don't seem to be able to select text to copy and paste. I had to type out "391.32 gram strained greek yogurt" like some sort of caveman. And that makes me wonder what a screen reader would make of it...
For recipes, I prefer to use approximate round figures when talking in terms of metric and American customary. So, 1 fl oz is 30 ml, a pound of flour is 450 g, etc.
These are much easier to measure, scale, and remember. There are very few contexts where minute differences matter, and I don't think you're going to find a material crossover figure between those that want recipe help and those that are working on the kind of stuff where it matters.
This reminds me of making a trip to a jeweler when I was < 10 years old, and noticing that they had a weighing scale that seemed to be down to decimal points of a gram (which I guess counts when you're weighing gold, etc).
And the numbers kept changing even when the scale was empty. I think I had a whole conversation with my grandpa about why that was happening, and we came up with "probably just variations in air/breeze around the scale causing them to change"
No idea if that's actually what it was, but it's plausible if you're doing sub-gram weighing?
> No idea if that's actually what it was, but it's plausible if you're doing sub-gram weighing?
Yes, even dust particles landing on the scale can impact the reading, which is why when you're measuring really small things and want to be precise, you usually have a little glass/plastic cube around the entire thing too.
Also frequently used for people who measure drugs for various purposes.
Most likely the op amp (or whatever gain stage) noise. After a certain point, you get thermal noise.
But with such scales, low sample rates and averaging are key.
I have a scale in my kitchen that measures with 0.1g precision, and it doesn't do what you describe (change while you're not touching it). Perhaps technology has advanced since the anecdote you describe? Or maybe my scale is just lying to me.
Your scale may smooth out the fluctuations automatically.
Mine takes a little while to notice when I'm adding something like a tenth of a gram of yeast to a recipe.
Yeah, I'd guess this is what's happening.
Hmmm then I bet it was a flaw. Or maybe modern scales have microcontrollers that adjust for this?
This was a scale in a jeweler in India. It might have been in the late 80s or mid-90s. I might be misremembering too. So take my anecdote with a grain of salt.
> Or maybe modern scales have microcontrollers that adjust for this?
This seems likely to me.
Also, depending on the ingredient, it makes more sense to use cups as a measurement of volume, not mass, when converting to metric. E.g. liquids, yoghurt etc.
Another thing: although not strictly metric, but European recipes also use tablespoon and teaspoon as measurements for smaller volumes, so no need to convert this.
Just my two cents, other than that very nice work!!
"Also, depending on the ingredient, it makes more sense to use cups as a measurement of volume, not mass, when converting to metric."
Hmmm... What kind of cup? :-)
US "legal" cup (240ml) US customary cup (246,6ml) metric cup (150ml) UK cup (170,5ml)
Please, please try using weight whenever possible, aka for all amounts >= 2 grams.
1. People are bad at measuring volume. This has been tested. There is much more variance in amounts measured by volume than be weight. See "science and cooking" (ferran adria).
2. Using a scale means doing a lot fewer dishes! (measuring cups, spoons, etc.)
3. It's faster, try it!
Thanks for the feedback. I've made a note.
so use cups and tablespoons but put in parenthesis the value in mL
Certainly. That would provide a good user experience. Thank you.
Thank you for the feedback. Will definitely release an update by tomorrow for this.
Regarding selection of text, that has been a problem with flutter. I will find a way to make it selectable.
There is an alternative. You can share the recipe or click print. There you would be able to select it.
Or, you could share the recipe and it would be copied to your clipboard.
I know that is not exactly what you want, but it will solve the purpose for now.
I'll fix it soon. Apologies.
I'm not convinced that the units conversion is right. The example of 2 Cups of greek yoghurt being 391.32 g. 1 US cup is 240 ml (or 236.5 ml depending on which type of cup you are using). The density of greek yoghurt is somewhere between 0.96 g/ml and 1.04 g/ml (depending on which website you trust the most). This leads me to calculate that 2 cups greek yoghurt weighs between 454 g and 499 g). The 391 g value is way off.
Thanks for pointing it out. I'll look into it and fix it by tomorrow.
My kitchen scale only shows grams to the nearest integer anyway.
No one requested "highlight the ingredient names in the recipe steps"? That's a top request from me.
Thanks. I'll add this as an optional user preference
Highlighted ingredient names and inline amount/sizing so there isn't as much back-and-forth referencing!
Are you still taking suggestions? You should have a "random recipe" button that loads something random from your database. Right now, your product is very one-dimensional: Someone has a specific problem, they find your solution, they use it. But, adding another dimension for people who don't have that problem is a good idea. And I think a random recipe button will naturally open you to finding what that second dimension is.
Hey! I never really thought in that direction.
That's a great insight. I'd definitely look into it.
Thank you
In addition to random recipe.
Have a recipe of the day. Rotated per 24 hours.
So we can all enjoy and refine a recipe together
The app looks very nice. Small suggestions: Show the price of the premium plan when not logged in. Many users may not entertain an app depending on the price, and logging in shouldn't be needed to see it.
Also the ability to halve recipes would be great, sometimes you just want to make less.
Thanks. Yes, makes total sense.
Will make these changes and release soon.
Four years soon?
Haha. No, not this time. ;) It'll be released by this weekend and I am focusing on this project completely right now.
This is amazing, and at first glance it is going to solve many of my problems. I see offers to start a free trial but nothing about pricing. The sign up page doesn't work well with my password manager, I imagine you need to add auto fill hints to the textboxes, looks like your using flutter, so add these to each textbox you want to autofill: https://api.flutter.dev/flutter/material/TextField/autofillH..., it should also work with mobile
When I sign up, I get an error when confirming my email: This site can’t be reached The webpage at https://api.onlyrecipeapp.com/?code=XXX
Good work, looks very promising.
Oh shoot!
That's a reverse proxy configuration error. I just fixed it.
Please try registering again.
Congratulations on the work.
Some nits/notes:
- Browser history seems to go in a circle (at least in Chrome); try use the browser's native "back" arrow a few times after clicking through the link you shared from HN.
- Transition animations and element "load-in" animations make the whole thing feel slow and hard to use. As it is, I'm frustrated trying to look through recipes or moving through pages.
Thank you.
You have confirmed the two issues that others are also facing.
I'll definitely look into this
I think it’s first time I’ve seen stuff like tablespoon, teaspoon, cup converted when changing to metric. These are very normal units to use in Europe when cooking. We don’t measure teaspoons by the grams when we make food. If measuring flour or something then of course grams would make sense.
- if you change to metric system suddenly you get numbers like 453,59 grams fusili pasta - its quite demotivating
- instead of grams I would like also tell me how many americano coffee cups more or less than looking for scale.
- I wanna scale down - if serving is for 6 people i want to scale down to to servings
I've added it to my notes. Thanks
Any planned import options? I would love to import my plantoeat csv into it
Funny timing, I've been building something like this for my own use -- but your feature list has everything I wanted :) How much do you charge? Would love to know without downloading an app
Glad you liked it. There is a free tier. So you don't necessarily have to purchase. The pricing summary is here https://get.onlyrecipeapp.com/pricing
Thank you
It's great to see other people working on this. It's a problem that needs solving, and you've solved it in a meaningful way. I have been building https://spoonme.kitchen/ for a couple of years now (but with a different focus) to help solve this problem and a few others that are meaningful to me.
One aspect that I've been really wrestling with is how can we make the end user experience of seeing a recipe better, while still providing meaningful income to the recipe creators who labor so much to share their stuff with us. I'd be interested in your thoughts on this. That to me would be the very meaningful, positive change: that end users get a better experience, and creators get paid. That's been my overarching goal and motivation.
This looks great. Something I'd like to see in a recipe app is scale is not only reflected in the ingredients list but also in the directions.
The linked recipe is a great example. The 1/2 teaspoon in step 1 is never modified regardless of the scale of the recipe.
Also scale should go below 1 (like .5).
Should the measurements be included in the instructions or just left out to avoid that? Instead of "add 1/2 teaspoon of ingredient", just say "add ingredient".
growing up, we had the old red/white gingham Betty Crocker cookbook where the scaled measurements were written in the book. the instructions never had any of the measurements in them. based on that, it just feels natural to the point of adding the scaling into the instructions seems overly complicated. just took a look at couple of other recipe examples, and they all leave out the measurements in the instructions.
I personally prefer leaving the measurement in the instructions for two reasons.
1. I'll often use the ingredients list (and quantities there) before cooking to ensure that I have everything I need ahead of time. Depending on what ingredient it is, I might not mise en place it. In those cases, a step that says "add ingredient" would require me to go reference the list in the beginning, losing a bit of context.
2. It's not often, but I've followed a few recipes that require a particular ingredient in 2 different steps in different amounts.
recipes that don't separate their ingredients into steps like crust/filling/icing when using common ingredients like butter are just poorly written recipes.
Noted this. Thank you.
Since a recipe can be for multiple services, the ability to scale a recipe down would be helpful.
Doesn't seem to work for this blog: https://foodwishes.blogspot.com/2016/03/tartiflette-french-p...
I assume that (like most recipe apps out there) he's just trying to parse the json Recipe schema when it is attached. Most blogs attach them because it helps Google get them indexed.
Chef John doesn't
Easily fixed. After all, you are the mason of your own JSON.
Ironic, considering that FoodWishes has been on Blogspot forever. Blogspot (Google) could auto-generate it on the fly.
You are right. I'll add a fallback to parse it using LLM.
This one didn't work either: https://www.thekitchn.com/how-to-cook-moist-tender-chicken-b...
Noted.
This page probably does not have the standard recipe attributes that are needed for parsing the recipe.
I am adding a fallback mechanism for such cases. The text will be parsed using LLM like ChatGPT.
Should be released by tomorrow. Cheers!
Thank you for this!
[comment about issue that is present in original recipe removed]
I would be amazing if you released this as a Windows app. I would love to use it on my surface which sits in the kitchen.
That should be doable. I have made a note. Thanks.
Hi HN,
I posted the first version of OnlyRecipe here about four years ago [1], and the response was incredible. The feedback in that thread shaped a lot of what I wanted to build next. That initial momentum proved that the core problem (ads, life stories, and clutter on recipe blogs) needed a solution.
Progress since then has been slower than I hoped — I had some health issues and was building on and off — but I kept coming back to this project because I genuinely love working on it. I’ve been working on the project on and off, fitting development in whenever I could. This post represents a huge personal milestone.
Here’s what’s new after all this time:
Import from Videos: Import directly from TikTok, Instagram, Youtube and Facebook videos
Import from Handwritten recipes: Import from handwritten notes and screenshots
Unit Conversion: A highly-requested feature. Instantly convert US Customary (cups/oz) to Metric (grams/ml) for any extracted recipe.
Grocery Lists: Consolidate ingredients from multiple saved recipes into a single, clean shopping list.
Meal Plan: Plan your weekly meals in advance
Controls: Full recipe editing, PDF export, printing, and cross-device sync
Mobile-First Design: While the web view (linked above) is great for quickly seeing the result, the mobile apps have dedicated native controls for cooking mode (e.g., screen stay-awake, timers, and offline access).
In-App Browser: Directly import from any site within the app and many more...
To see these features in action quickly (small gif/videos), check it out on the landing page [2]
The link above is a deep link to a live demo on the web app.
I’d love to hear your thoughts on the new utility features and the performance of the parser! Try it out here [5]
[1] Original post from Jan 2022: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29795482
[2] Landing Page: https://get.onlyrecipeapp.com
[3] iOS App: https://apps.apple.com/in/app/only-recipe/id1602130759
[4] Android App: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.nsqr.onlyr...
[5] Web app: https://onlyrecipeapp.com
Constructive feedback on current state:
- many recipe sites let you check/uncheck things you want to print. I'd love to print just [ name, ingredients, instructions ] without [ photo, metadata/servings/nutrition/etc. ]. I much prefer one page recipes to two pages.
- on desktop, some text-break like "6 servings" breaks to 2 lines
Thank you for the feedback. Appreciate it. I have made a note of this. I will fix it in next release.
Very cool! it does get a bit confused about number words that aren't amounts, like "3 large russet potatoes, peeled and halved lengthwise" becomes "3 large russet potatoes, peeled and cut in 0.50 lengthwise" which when scaled up becomes "cut in 1 lengthwise"
Yeah it tries to convert generically. I have noted this edge-case and I'll add special handling for cases like this.
Thank you for pointing it out
Congrats on releasing and steadily improving. What was the most unexpected thing you learnt lately?
Thank you.
There are many learnings:
1. The most unexpected thing that I learned was the absolute nightmare it is to set up subscriptions.
I initially thought it would be a simple task. I started off with writing APIs and webhooks for Play store and App store.
But then as I got into the specifics things got complicated very quickly.
The combinations of subscriptions (monthly/yearly, AI and non-AI), cancellations, cross device subscription sync, how to handle trials, how to manage subscription states of users, and then when users upgrade, that's another few cases to handle.
There were just too many cases to handle.
I then just used a third-party provider (RevenueCat). They have handled all the complexities beautifully.
2. Supabase self-host is another nightmare in itself. Just the sheer amount of configs needs (through the .env file) is insane. They have intentionally made it so difficult to configure.
3. Setting up SMTP and sending emails is actually a very tiring and cumbersome process. AWS SES is just too much work. Mainly the domain reputation (emails always landing in spam) and also there are not many providers that give a generous trial.
The animations are laggy and the transitions make the website slow.
Can you also tell me which browser and/or version you are using? I'll check it.
I have actually added same transition as mobile apps. But there shouldn't be lags ideally. I'll have a look.
It's most likely because all 3d acceleration is disabled in my browser. Using chrome up-to-date on linux.
would love to see the original requested feature list ?
Here is a list (summarized by LLM)
Conversion, Scaling, and Measurement
Conversion to weights from volume (e.g., converting '1 cup of flour' to grams). One developer noted they'd look into generic conversion feasibility. Scaling a recipe (e.g., adjusting ingredients for 1.5x or 2x the batch size). Unit Choice: Offering a clear choice between metric and imperial units. Unit Specificity: The ability to differentiate between US and non-US cups for accurate conversions. Data Structure: Displaying ingredient data with consistent units in a database to enable easy batch size adjustments and visualization of value changes. Structured Data and Presentation C4E Format: Converting recipes to the format used on Cooking For Engineers. Process Visualization: Displaying the entire recipe process using Gantt charts or a Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) / graphviz to illustrate dependencies between steps. SEO/Integration: Incorporating JSON-LD support for better recipe recognition and advanced features. Printability: Generating dedicated print-friendly pages. Standard Layout: A simplified, standardized layout for better readability across all recipes. Sharing: A feature for sharing recipe "image cards" (screenshots) with friends. Management, Search, and Tools Shopping List: Creating a grocery list from the scraped ingredients. List Filtering: The ability to exclude common ingredients (salt, pepper, olive oil) from the automatically generated shopping list. Nutrition: Generating automatic nutrition labels. Personal Database: The capability to ingest every recipe from every cookbook into a personal, searchable database. Search Function: Allowing search for recipes instead of just requiring a URL input. Sync/Backup: Enabling server-sync and export/import of recipes. Timers: The option to set a timer linked to the time specified in a recipe step. Custom Lists: Allowing users to create their own categorization rules for ingredients on shopping lists. Platform and UI Dark Mode: Adding a dark mode for late-night cooking. iOS Integration: Implementing a Safari extension feature for the iOS app to open recipe pages automatically within the app. Video Parsing: The capability to parse recipes from YouTube URLs or videos.
Great job!
Thank you :)
Hijacks the back button :/
Sorry for that. I am still handling cases in web app. This is built in Flutter and released as a mobile-first or tablet-first app.
I am fixing many such issues right now. Should be at par with the mobile apps soon.
Clicking on back button of my mouse starts an infinite loop.
hahahahahah i remember you! <3