from Hacker News

Show HN: OnlyRecipe.app – Remove clutter from recipe sites

by AwkwardPanda on 1/4/22, 3:03 PM with 345 comments

by JonathanBuchh on 1/4/22, 3:46 PM
It would be amazing if there was something that would convert recipes to the format used on Cooking For Engineers. It’s so intuitive and easy to read. I never want to look at steps to make a recipe again.
Scroll to the bottom to see what I’m talking about: http://www.cookingforengineers.com/recipe/108/Banana-Nut-Bre...
by AwkwardPanda on 1/4/22, 3:11 PM
It can get frustrating skimming through text walls just to find the recipe on blogs/sites. Authors do it to get high ranking on Google. You can use OnlyRecipe.app to extract the recipe information. It works on almost all sites/blogs which follow a recipe standard when they post.
You can also save it to your phone directly using the app. Scan recipe QR code using your phone camera and voila.
Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mysticpeak...
iOS: https://apps.apple.com/app/id1602130759
Short 50-seconds video on how recipe camera scanner works https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ziSNwjv9PXo
Currently working on a feature that lets you share recipe "image cards" with your friends.. Something like this https://i.redd.it/kk1goqsswo981.png
Let me know if you'd use that feature
by otrahuevada on 1/4/22, 6:05 PM
According to https://copyrightalliance.org/are-recipes-cookbooks-protecte...:
```
    Recipes can be protected under copyright law if they are accompanied by “substantial literary expression.” This expression can be an explanation or detailed directions, which is likely why food and recipe bloggers often share stories and personal anecdotes alongside a recipe’s ingredients.
```
So besides SEO, there's this thing where the recipe itself is basically defenseless against someone stealing it and calling it theirs but the sum of the fluff around it plus the recipe on the other hand can be copyrighted and enjoys all the protections afforded to these kinds of things. So, if say, Jamie Oliver likes your recipe and puts it in a book passing it as his, you can now legally tell him to stop doing that because of said fluff.
by fancy_pantser on 1/4/22, 5:30 PM
In the same vein, I made the Recipe Filter extension for browsers:
Chrome: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/recipe-filter/ahlc...
FF: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/recipe-filter...
Source code (there's Safari in there if you don't mind building it yourself): https://github.com/sean-public/RecipeFilter
I was spurred into action by a comment here on HN back in 2017: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15755378
It got demoed to the world during WWDC 2020, which was really neat: https://youtu.be/Kwh2y6VkzoA
by js2 on 1/4/22, 4:30 PM
The comments on recipe sites are often useful. Things like: pre-heat your mason jars before pouring in the caramelized sugar or they'll crack. You can find clarifications, or things people have substituted, or just how a recipe has failed for some folks.
There's a handful of recipe sites I tend to stick to. Smitten Kitchen, All Recipes, Serious Eats, NYT Cooking. I also have a few favorite cooking books: On Food and Cooking, Joy of Cooking, The Art of Simple Food. Then I have some speciality cooking books for desserts, ice creams, and soups.
My wife transcribes recipes we really like to 4" x 6" index cards. The recipe box is up to probably about 200-300 recipes we've collected over our 25 years together.
FWIW, on current iPadOS, Only Recipe isn't showing up in the Share menu for me.
by mirthturtle on 1/4/22, 3:37 PM
Someone tried this a while back and it didn't go so well: https://www.washingtonpost.com/food/2021/03/02/recipeasly-fo...
by nucleogenesis on 1/4/22, 3:49 PM
Some blogs do the extra stuff right. Sally’s Baking Addiction’s preceding blog is often invaluable with tips about timing, temperatures, possible places things can go wrong, etc.
It has the floating “skip to recipe” button which is handy when you come back to a familiar recipe for some details.
The clutter isn’t the problem as much as the content quality is most often for me.
by lifeisstillgood on 1/4/22, 7:55 PM
Reading good food writers is the whole point of having good food writers. They can build an evocative sense of the time and place, the sense of why a recipie is the way it is. Its sometimes a personal journey, its sometimes escapism. And yes it changes - Elizabeth David sounds outrageously prissy to modern ears - but food has always been part of human culture, and as we evolve so will our food. Its fine to read the wikipedia "plot" section if you want a shortcut. But its nice to know you can just read the whole book. Slowly.
by mhh__ on 1/4/22, 3:32 PM
See also https://based.cooking/
by vigneshv_psg on 1/4/22, 5:24 PM
Slightly off topic, but a hack that i have found to read recipe websites on my phone is to use the "Print Recipe" link that most websites provide. It gets rid of most of the annoying ads, autoplaying videos and unzoomable text (or text tapping on which takes you to some random link because the page resized and you accidentally tapped on an ad).
The "Print Recipe" page usually contains just the recipe in a format which is easy to read without any clutter.
by switzer on 1/4/22, 3:37 PM
Since OnlyRecipe.app is already parsing the recipe site, it would be a great feature to allow conversion to weights from volume (e.g. show 120g of flour vs. 1c of flour). Also, allow someone to double (or 1.5x...) the recipe as well, and have all measures double in the recipe!
by asow92 on 1/4/22, 3:37 PM
reminds me of https://www.paprikaapp.com/
by ryanmcbride on 1/4/22, 6:13 PM
I've all but stopped getting recipes from websites. It always feels like every recipe I find was either just copied from some other site with one ingredient changed, or there's some brand sponsored ingredient shoehorned in. A lot of modern recipe books aren't much better, but there's maybe a little more useful info.
The main thing I've done to find decent recipes these days is to check youtube. Not stuff like 5 minute crafts or overproduced tiktok recipe "hacks", but videos by people cooking in their own kitchen, mostly in real time, talking about what they're doing and why. You can see the whole process and see their technique and be reasonably certain that they know what they're doing on some level.
Here's a few people I always come back to in case anyone is interested:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNrkDzpgSFY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5dSeHP14Osc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uyop7-v3Es
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVolu2pxveo
by 2bitencryption on 1/4/22, 3:38 PM
What is the reason that every single recipe site, without fail, follows this same horrible pattern?
I.e. the twenty paragraph "When I was a child growing up in Atlanta..." followed by a crappy in-house video player followed by, finally, the actual recipe?
My assumption is SEO? For some reason, Google must really like having tons of text on your page, and dislikes simple "here's the recipe"? etc?
Second question - anyone who has searched for recipes also knows that Google will parse out any star rating from the recipe page and show it alongside the results. Which is obviously meaningless because comparing 4.5 stars from grandmas-cooking.net to 4.5 stars from foodnetwork.com is apples-to-oranges. So what's to stop me from simply faking my own star system, then presenting it on my website so that google picks it up in its results? And what triggers Google to look for a star rating? Could I update my tech blog to have a star rating and Google will show it? Or is it limited to keywords like "recipe"?
by thrower123 on 1/4/22, 4:12 PM
Most recipe sites are less terrible if you click the "Print Recipe" button, for example:
https://goodcheapeats.com/simple-rice-pilaf/
versus:
https://goodcheapeats.com/wprm_print/27621
by mvexel on 1/4/22, 4:26 PM
As some other commenters have said -- often, the "print" function will give you a more concise / readable version. I keep a recipe folder with PDFs "printed" from recipe web sites.
It would be nice if this app would support printing. It does a great job reducing this recipe page to its essentials: https://onlyrecipe.app/?url=https://cookieandkate.com/best-v... but when I try to print, the preview shows a blank page (Safari on Mac).
by y04nn on 1/4/22, 4:46 PM
It is interesting that there is not yet a Wikipedia of recipes. It would be the perfect use case for a wiki. People would love to share their recipes variations and improve/fix existing one.
There would be a standard layout, introduction paragraph would explain the history of a recipe and link to other similar recipes. That would be interesting to read.
And there would be an endless number of recipes. For-profit sites are full of ads and SEO optimized to improve user retention/engagement, which make them annoying to use. A wiki could be print friendly and distraction-free, which would be perfect for a recipe.
by johnwatson11218 on 1/4/22, 4:23 PM
I have wanted to build something like this for consuming news sites, especially when my ad blocker has to be disabled. But thinking more long term ... what about a ML project that can look at many recipes and do a kind of PCA, figure out the essence of a pound cake for example and use actual data to show the main variations as clusters in a high dimensional state space. Or even try to reduce Thai or Mexican cooking to certain prototypical dishes and have versions at different skill levels for the aspiring home chef.
by markstos on 1/4/22, 4:11 PM
Better: Use AnyList. It has a feature to import recipes. The result is that not only get to view a clean copy of a recipe, but a clean copy is stored in AnyList for easy reference later.
by mrsuprawsm on 1/4/22, 3:41 PM
There's this Chrome add-on which also filters out the junk from recipes: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/recipe-filter/ahlc...
It was featured in the MacOS Big Sur keynote being used with Safari but sadly hasn't made it to the App Store yet.
by short12 on 1/4/22, 4:52 PM
Recipe websites are a prime example of everything that is wrong with the web today. The bulk collection websites are primarily crap but for the same reasons as the personal branded websites. A shit ton of junk around a sometimes worthwhile background story or such and then the recipe all with shit tons of junk interrupting and destroying any sense of continuity. Fuck their stupid ads
by adwww on 1/4/22, 3:38 PM
Anyone know why this life story rubbish seems particularly acute on recipe websites?
I get the authors are doing it to boost Google rankings. But why do I only see it on cooking blogs, and not on blogs about cycling, DIY, programming, urbanism, whatever else I'm searching....
Not many tech blogs start with a 4 page life history before showing me the code snippet I'm looking for.
by mtm7 on 1/4/22, 6:10 PM
> What is the reason that every single recipe site, without fail, follows this same horrible pattern? I.e. the twenty paragraph "When I was a child growing up in Atlanta..." followed by a crappy in-house video player followed by, finally, the actual recipe?
I lived with a food blogger for six years and might be able to provide some more perspective for these types of comments (beyond just SEO).
First, there's actually an audience that _is_ interested in this type of content. Some are repeat readers who want to follow food bloggers' lives, similar to how HN readers might follow a streamer on Twitch. It's a much more rewarding journey if people don't just see you as a recipe database and bounce, but actually engage with you and follow you over time.
Second, a lot of food bloggers simply enjoy writing and see their blogs as a way to express themselves. Some of them write these stories for their family and friends and didn't think they'd be at the top of Google.
Third, it takes a ton of effort to write a single recipe. I can't speak for others, but hers involved multiple days of planning/cooking/shooting, remaking it several times so she knew it'd be consistent for the reader, planning/shooting/editing the photos, and even scrapping recipes altogether if they didn't work out. She also had to deal with the business end of things (like getting a lawyer, accountant, social media manager, and managing contracts with sponsors). Her attitude was basically, "if I'm doing all of these things to provide someone with a free recipe, they can scroll past my story if they don't feel like reading it". (That being said, her site was pretty minimalist compared to other food blogs – she didn't run ads.)
FWIW, I don't have a problem with onlyrecipe.app, I just wanted to share this because I'd be interested if I didn't know already.
by mfashby on 1/4/22, 4:08 PM
similar discussion recently https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29161585
similar open-source program plainoldrecipe https://plainoldrecipe.com/
by figbert on 1/4/22, 7:44 PM
You simply must try https://www.mysaffronapp.com
It really successfully imports and de-clutters recipes from any and all recipe sites I've thrown at it. Ben Awad, the programmer behind Saffron, actually posted about their scraping technique on HN to significant success: https://www.benawad.com/scraping-recipe-websites/ (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23142220)
Their UX is unmatched, they've got apps for iOS and Android in addition to the web app itself. Undoubtedly one of my favorite pieces of software.
by adammenges on 1/4/22, 5:44 PM
I'm curious how you wrote the logic for recipe detection? I've know some others who've tried to solve this and like many pattern recognition tasks it turns out to be harder than you'd think, but not impossible of course. Just curious how you did it.
by troyvit on 1/4/22, 6:07 PM
I have to admit that recipes are valuable enough to me that I'm OK with the crap at the top. It's annoying, but it's an endearing kind of annoyance. The way I see it, they're providing a service and if they want to do it in this stupid way I'll go along with it, especially since the content isn't exactly horrible, it's just silly and inane and somehow adds to the whole cooking experience.
Sometimes the stuff I'm cooking actually turns out differently because of all the mad scrolling I do trying to find the next ingredient to add while my sauce pan is boiling over or whatever. Kindof fun.
Last, recipe books are a great way to get around this crap, and then you're actually paying for the knowledge you use.
by joshstrange on 1/4/22, 4:19 PM
If you are looking for a way to tame your recipes look into Paprika [0]. It can import/scrape recipes from any site and lets you organize them and save them for later. You can use it to build a shopping list, meal plan, track what you have on hand, and more. I always make a point to mention it on posts related to recipes since it's the best app I've found for recipes and worth every penny (no subscriptions, 1-time purchase). You can also export your recipes and share them with other people (last I checked the export file was essentially a zip with JSON inside and the pictures).
[0] https://www.paprikaapp.com/
by danychok on 1/4/22, 3:51 PM
Ben Awad developed a great little app which addresses this problem also. I believe he developed it with his mother - who is a the designer. https://www.mysaffronapp.com/
by darkstar999 on 1/4/22, 5:08 PM
Copy Me That does this and more, if anyone is interested in comparing. It doesn't have a polished UI but it's very useful for me. https://www.copymethat.com/
by mstudio on 1/4/22, 4:01 PM
Nicely done! I just ran into this "clutter" issue last week while trying to read a recipe that kept auto-scrolling due to a pop-up ad intermittently changing height at the top of the page. Some quick feedback: it worked perfectly for a recipe at "simplyrecipes.com" but was unable to find a recipe on the Food Network, specifically: https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/creme-brulee... Keep up the good work!
by v_p_n_p_v on 1/5/22, 12:15 AM
My dream is to build a browser to do this for the entire web, using AI/ML to "translate" ad-ridden sites to their pure HTML/CSS counterpart. Lots of pre-trained models can make sense of pages based on visual layout. Seq2seq/summarizer models can work hand-in-hand to take out the cruft.
I imagine a cache of this simple web shared across all browsers.
Imagine translating all PDF manuals, scientific research, and yes, recipes, in this decentralized manner. The dataset would be clean both for human consumption as well as ML training.
by brutal_chaos_ on 1/4/22, 9:46 PM
I really like the concept so I gave your PWA a try. The first recipe I tried[1] did not work as the app said it was unable to find a recipe. The wording also went down past the bottom of the screen, but I was unable to scroll to see the rest of the text. I used the "Desktop site" option my browser has and then was able to read the full message.
[1]: https://www.food.com/recipe/homemade-curry-powder-38702
by me_me_mu_mu on 1/4/22, 8:39 PM
One trick you can do is just to Print the recipe, and you get all ads removed in a nice clean view. Almost all the recipe sites I use have a Print button somewhere on the page.
You could make an extension that literally calls Print on the page, and turn it into a PDF view from which you can save it. Your recipes could get stored locally or something, so you always have the website URL + clean recipe view stored.
That way you support the site, and you get your recipes without destroying your eyes.
by bearjaws on 1/4/22, 3:31 PM
I just happened to be looking into a shakshuka recipe and as per usual every website is 90% life story, background, history of the mesopotamia era...
This worked perfectly and will make shopping a bit easier. Example below.
https://onlyrecipe.app/?url=https://www.loveandlemons.com/sh...
by lanamo on 1/5/22, 10:36 PM
I am using MELA https://mela.recipes - also being frustrated with recipes and the amount of unnecessary blabla, this app is awesome. it de-clutters recipes, has a cooking mode (shows you step by step) and a grocery shopping function. It is the same developer as the awesome Reeder RSS app. Very nice design as well. Check it out and happy cooking!
by dskloet on 1/5/22, 8:21 AM
If an image fails to load, there is an animation which is still quite distracting. Can that just be a static broken imagine icon?
For example here: https://onlyrecipe.app/?url=https://www.allrecipes.com/recip...
by 3guk on 1/4/22, 5:20 PM
It's such a shame that something like this has to exist and that the creators have to resort to a fairly fixed playbook of SEO techniques (like whole life story, recipe development etc etc).
From my personal experience running a small tech tips site - it seems that I constantly end up further down the rankings cause I refuse to stuff each page with information that is not relevant.
by arthurgibson on 1/4/22, 5:41 PM
I've been using this web app built by typesense as a demo, the non-clutter is ideal: https://recipe-search.typesense.org/
prev: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25365397
by wombat-man on 1/4/22, 5:04 PM
I've given up and just try to find good cook books. I can't deal with internet recipes anymore. cool idea though!
by seabea on 1/4/22, 7:57 PM
Looks poorly tested. QR code scanner doesn't work and the "how to use?" tip doesn't display anything. Manually entering a url requires the user to include the subdomain AND http/https (instead of defaulting to "http://www".
by kerneloftruth on 1/4/22, 3:43 PM
Sincere best wishes and good luck with this -- thank you! Then, please do the same for code sample sites. :)
by sct202 on 1/4/22, 3:48 PM
For people who don't want to install an app, most recipe websites have a "Jump/Skip to Recipe" link at the top under the header and sometimes it's mixed up in between the fb/twitter share buttons. You still get hit with modals and videos but at least it's less.
by Jonovono on 1/4/22, 4:24 PM
Awesome, i'm going to add this to my PWA browser: https://apps.apple.com/ca/app/wapps-private-minimal-browser/...
by m4rc3lv on 1/4/22, 9:44 PM
Works on a lot of sites, nice job. I can't pull recipes from McDougall. https://www.drmcdougall.com/recipes/white-beans-mexicali/
by notreallyserio on 1/4/22, 3:35 PM
Feedback: visiting recipe pages, such as the one bearjaws shared, using Safari[0] can result in you being "trapped" -- the back button doesn't have the desired effect. It looks like onlyrecipe may be doing something to the web history.
0: Safari on iOS 15.2, iPhone 8.
by perakojotgenije on 1/4/22, 7:48 PM
Shameless plug: you can save your favorite recipes to gabngabn.com[1] and then have your recipes without clutter.
[1] https://gabngabn.com/init/default/about
by infini8 on 1/4/22, 4:24 PM
Love the standardised layout. Another step towards simplified digital consumption this year.
Reminds of Tandoor: https://github.com/TandoorRecipes/recipes
by dskloet on 1/5/22, 8:33 AM
If you create a bookmark with the following URL, you can click it while on a recipe site to go to the OnlyRecipe version:
```
    javascript:window.location.href='https://onlyrecipe.app/?url=' + (window.location.href)
```
by soamv on 1/4/22, 6:59 PM
For me, the context and reasoning behind why the recipe does what it does is much more important than the recipe itself; that makes such apps counterproductive.
I can imagine that "just the recipe" is useful for very novice cooks, but most of the time it's much better to learn the patterns and techniques than to follow the precise recipe. You'll be much more prepared that way when things don't go to plan, or when you're missing a few ingredients.
And this may be unpopular here, but I often enjoy the "life story" too: for me, many of the joys of cooking are in the connections made to other people. And if the recipe writer wants to build a connection with the cook because they poured so much effort into the recipe, I'm open to that -- and whatever it may bring to the actual cooking.
(Maybe I should make a "just the code" browser extension for Github that deletes README files ;) )
by harel on 1/4/22, 9:42 PM
Every time I open a recipe online these days, I sigh so loudly out of desperation of what I need to scroll through to get to the actual recipe. And that is before I do the cookie dance.
I guess you guys heard my sighs!!! Amazing. Thanks!
by jessehattabaugh on 1/5/22, 1:50 AM
Props for building a PWA, but why do I have to copy paste a url into it when the Share Target API would allow me to send the URL directly to you app using the browser's share feature?
by mongol on 1/4/22, 5:44 PM
My problem with recipes are - how do I know they are good? What is the quality control? Perhaps someone just grabbed a computer and wrote a bunch of steps down.
by yepthatsreality on 1/4/22, 4:19 PM
Pro tip: if a recipe has a “Print” link on the recipe page, clicking it will most likely give you a “Reader mode” version of that page with the clutter removed.
by mothsonasloth on 1/4/22, 7:14 PM
I would recommend https://based.cooking/
It started out as a joke but I have made a point of picking a recipe out of it every week to try.
The stone soup one is fun and a nice story - https://based.cooking/almeirim-stone-soup.html
You can also submit recipes on the Github repo - https://github.com/lukesmithxyz/based.cooking
by kpmcc on 1/5/22, 3:04 AM
I just tried Firefox's 'Reader Mode' for my go to recipe site (food52) and it worked like a charm making everything less distracting.
by tonymet on 1/4/22, 5:05 PM
are you planning to index the recipes ? there are a couple other recipe transform apps out there but it’s the indexing that will distinguish you .
by adammenges on 1/4/22, 5:48 PM
Feature request: Add in the iOS app safari extension thing so you when you browse to `www.allrecipes.com` or similar it opens in your app.
by notyourwork on 1/4/22, 5:09 PM
The use case sounds great but why does everything need an app anymore? Everything doesn't need an app, thats why we have the web.
/end rant.
by tlhunter on 1/4/22, 6:22 PM
Is that PWA button fair to use? Been looking for something like that which matches the ubiquitous Android and iOS buttons.
by srg0 on 1/6/22, 8:30 AM
Suggestion: add a switch to convert American units (cups, lb, inches) to international units (ml, g, cm) and vice versa.
by domoritz on 1/4/22, 3:45 PM
Could someone make a uBlock Origin filter list that removes the stuff before the recipe? I'd subscribe to that.
by AlunAlun on 1/4/22, 8:16 PM
I rarely post on HN, but I’m breaking my silence to say that this app is amazing and I can see it changing my life!
by cabalamat on 1/5/22, 4:38 AM
Why does it need a URL? I should be able to search on e.g. "banana cake" and get banana cake recipes.
by AwkwardPanda on 1/4/22, 4:29 PM
Oh shoot. I did not expect this huge a response. Any more load and my backend server is going to collapse.
by hagope on 1/4/22, 6:23 PM
Would be cool if you could enter Yotube URL and you parse out the recipe from the audio/video.
by post_break on 1/4/22, 4:43 PM
How about only the stories from recipes, no recipe. Would be an ironic coffee table book.
by datavirtue on 1/4/22, 6:58 PM
Freaking nice! It feels sooo good to dump that SEO garbage into dev/null.
by laurentlbm on 1/4/22, 3:40 PM
Thank you, I hate blog-post-type recipes! Do you plan on adding a dark mode?
by shortformblog on 1/4/22, 5:08 PM
This is theft that gets around a copyright loophole. Don’t steal recipes.
by shaneprrlt on 1/4/22, 3:43 PM
Is this a real service, or just a portfolio project for your resume?
by danguson on 1/5/22, 3:17 PM
It's a helpful app that makes cooking easier and intuitive.
by amelius on 1/4/22, 10:05 PM
Isn't this what "Reader Mode" is for?
by Pete-Codes on 1/4/22, 6:48 PM
ha, I always have to navigate whimsical tales of Italian grandfathers etc to get to the actual recipe so this is a good idea
by patrickserrano on 1/4/22, 3:49 PM
Mela on iOS[0] is a very similar app with some great polish. One nice thing with Mela at least, is if you use the built-in browser it can get around some paywalls like NYT Cooking. It also integrates with the Reminders app for grocery shopping lists.
[0]: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/mela-recipe-manager/id15484660...
by leifg on 1/4/22, 5:14 PM
I use a similar recipe manager on my phone (paprika 3 but also playing around with Mela). They come with an integrated browser to download the recipes.
Not only do they did rid of the novel about the ingredients and their origins, they also get around most paywalls.
The thing that would make me instantly switch to any other manager is an app that would parse recipes from the various YouTube and TikTok videos. If you follow the right accounts these videos are a gold mine.
by gedw99 on 1/4/22, 4:15 PM
aa
by gedw99 on 1/4/22, 4:15 PM
nice !!
by newfonewhodis on 1/4/22, 6:58 PM
The fact that this app is stealing content (that mostly makes money by ads) and monetizing it with ads is horrible. Right up the entitlement-alley of HN.