28 May,2011 06:27 AM IST | | Amrita Bose
Search tool Foodily will please the food-obsessed. It customises your food fetishes to the T -- you can connect with food blogs and celebrity chef food sites, fine-tune recipe searches, sift through the choicest of ingredients, find tons of nutritional information and healthy dining alternatives
You plan to whip up an experimental spread tonight and need to zero in on that perfect recipe online; you'll find a simple, authentic solution that lets you forge ahead despite the absence of a few ingredients. Typically, your reflex for this purpose would've been a browse through Google. However, if you prefer to check a food blogger's or even celeb chef Jamie Oliver's view of this recipe, you would have to refine your search with key words like 'blog' or Jamie Oliver.
Why Foodily.com?
At Foodily.com (foodily = Food I Love You), a new food search engine started by two ex-Yahoo employees in the US, any recipe search will give you a mix of popular food blogs, food networks and celebrity chef sites. Designed like a virtual food encyclopaedia, every recipe is accompanied by well-shot images, nutritional information, logos that explain if it is high fat, high fibre, low fat or low carb, along with the option of
sharing it on Facebook and Twitter. It'll micro-customise, if you're looking for food blogs or specific health parameters like low carb or high fibre.
Launched in February this year, Foodily is currently in its beta version on the web and offers categories including gluten-free, vegan, chicken, crockpot (slow cooking), Sunday brunch recipes, healthy dinners, pasta (and low-fat pasta) recipes and cakes. The Foodily blog accompanies the site where you can read about everything from books that could have been great cookbooks to making dinners from leftovers or limited ingredients and how to use the site more effectively.
What we like
The approach to search for recipes and dishes is extensive --you have an option to search by dish names (Oreo Cheesecake), specific food blogs or food sites (epicurious.com), or by including or excluding specific ingredient. You can even key in a couple of ingredients and the site will throw up recipes that use them. When we searched for Oreo Cheesecake without baking, we got recipe options that use chilling as a method of setting the dessert rather than baking. The Blogger Toggle feature is another plus if you prefer a personalised experience. It shows blog-only recipes with a choice of listing more recipes from a blog than you might have selected.
What we didn't like
The website promises global cuisine but we had issues about the authenticity and the source of origin. Our search for the simple Aloo Palak resulted in us being directed to plenty of blogs though none were of Indian origin. These recipes used ingredients like heavy cream, whole mustard seeds and curry powder, unheard of in any authentic version of this Indian mainstay. Clearly, the site caters to a western audience. While we would love to learn a Shepherd's Pie from Jamie Oliver or cupcakes from Rachel Allen, we'd rather skip Nigella Lawson's version of Dum Aloo.u00a0
Log on tou00a0 www,foodily.com
