Google Adds Recipe Search

Google on 24 February filled another hole in its sweeping search results refinements by adding Recipe View, accessible by a button users can click in the left-hand rail to learn how to concoct meals, desserts and other comestibles.

Google has offered recipe search in the traditional way, allowing users to type “veal saltimbocca”, for example, in the search box to see suggested ways of preparing the meal.

Specifying the search

However, typing “veal saltimbocca” is really just another broad search in a sea of millions of generalised searches. Some cooks are looking to work with specific ingredients or time constraints for the meals they choose to prepare. Google said some 10 million of its daily searches are recipe related so it makes sense to make life easier for those searchers.

Clicking the “Recipes” button helps users choose the right recipe from search results by not only offering ratings and pictures, but providing filters for ingredients, cooking time and calorie count for health-conscious chefs.

Take that veal saltimbocca example. A searcher may want to find a recipe they can make that doesn’t include lemon, a common ingredient in the dish, and takes 30 minutes or less to prepare.

The searcher can simply click the “no” box next to lemon and then click the box for “less than 30 minutes” of cook time. Up pop results from reliable websites such as Epicurious.com, About.com, Food.com and the FoodNetwork.com.

Will the recipes work? That depends on the degree of kitchen skill and finesse for the chef. Veal saltimbocca is a dish best flavored delicately because it often involves mixing lemon with cheese.

Additional features in Recipe View let search for recipes related to holidays, such as Christmas, or those created by celebrity chefs, such as Mario Batali.

Copying Bing?

Google Chef Scott Giambastiani shows searchers how to use Recipe View in this video demo. Recipe View is available now in the United States and Japan, and is coming to more countries later.

Some have noted that Google has “copied” Microsoft Bing again, as Bing has offered recipe search since January 2010.

However, it’s important to note the instantiation is different. Do the same “veal saltimbocca” search on Bing and while you’ll see recipe suggestions on the left, there are no ways to slice and dice results the way Google does by ingredients, cooking time and calorie count.

Recipe View is a natural extension of the left-hand rail search refinements Google introduced last May.