Four Food Websites to Inspire Your Cooking

Credit: flickr / Adam

Candy sushi is as much fun to make as it is to eat.

Candy sushi is as much fun to make as it is to eat.

Like plundering the world’s recipe books, the Internet can inspire you to cook

I wish the title of this post could have been “five websites to inspire you…” because that’s a much tidier number; but truthfully there are only four free websites that I go to time and again for recipes, kitchen tips and inspiration in the kitchen. In no particular order…

Foodgawker

Foodgawker is the very definition of food porn. And like other porn, the claims of “I only read it for the recipes” have to be taken with a grain of salt. Foodgawker has page after page of stunning pictures of food (all searchable by category or keywords) and each picture links to a recipe. (These candy sushi pictured above are one of my favourites, but there are lots of great Halloween ideas at the moment).

Cuisine.co.nz

Cuisine is a food and wine magazine in New Zealand, but their online meal maker is particularly brilliant. Plug in up to key four ingredients and Cuisine will search out recipe that fits the bill. Great when all you have is frozen spinach, a tin of chick peas and half a box of dried pasta.

Epicurious

Epicurious is a vast, searchable, crowd-sourced recipe database. What makes Epicurious so useful is that so many people use it. That means that the recipes are posted, reviewed and rated by users. Most of the reviews include tips and/or modifications on the original recipe.

Food Pairing

Foodpairing is a Belgian site that takes a moelcular gastronomy approach to food. There are two key parts to the site: “What fits well with…” and “What replaces…” The first of these allows you to search an item (e.g., basil; see screenshot below), and it will tell you what foods complement it. “What replaces…” tells you what you can use to replace an ingredient if you don’t have it. For example, a combination of coriander seed, rosemary and sage can be used to replace basil to give you a similar result.