ISEdb.COM

Let’s say you have just bought some couscous on sale at the grocery store. It seemed like a good idea at the time. But you get home, and realize that, a) you have no idea what couscous is, b) you have no idea what goes with couscous, and c) even if you did know these aforementioned things, you have no idea how to cook it!

Enter FoodGuts.com, a new search engine that allows you to type in the name of an ingredient (and it will correct you if you misspell it, ie. ‘Cous cous’ becomes ‘couscous’), and in turn, you will be shown a page with eight or more helpful boxes. The first contains a list of dishes that contain the ingredient. The second contains a list of ingredients that the searched ingredient goes well with (ie. Couscous goes well with olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and garlic). The third contains the ingredient’s nutritional information. The fourth has pictures of dishes with the ingredient, and direct links to the recipes. The fifth is for cooking considerations (though couscous has none yet – there is a link to “add some!”), the sixth, storage considerations (again, “add some!”), the seventh, substitutions (“add some!”), and finally, the eighth, the ingredient’s write-up on Wikipedia.

A list of popular ingredients, with links to their search results, is provided on the homepage. The only ingredient that seems relatively out of place on this list full of (not surprisingly) tasty and, for the most part, unhealthy ingredients, is celery.

The search engine is Recipe Puppy’s ingredient database. Recipe Puppy is an ingredient search engine that was built for finding recipes from specified ingredients. FoodGuts is where it stores all the information it compile about said ingredients.

The only thing that’s a bit confusing in FoodGuts.com’s search results is the difference between the “dishes with…” category and the “…recipes” category. Both contain links to recipes, but the first has anchor text links, while the second is image-only. All the links in the first category link to Recipe Puppy, which then has a list of links to recipes from outside sources. In the second category, the links are directly to the recipe pictured (but the picture are small and without text description, one is unsure exactly what that recipe will be). And some search results didn’t even contain the first category.

Though not all categories were completed for ‘couscous,’ a search for ‘garlic’ returned nearly every category filled out, and even an extra one: garlic products, with prices and links to things like garlic presses, and garlic dipping oils.

There is also a link at the bottom of each page entitled “Ask a Cooking Question,” which links to Recipe Labs, in case the information provided did not satisfy completely.