Scared to fridge-Google!

A little research into the behavior of visitors to the Fridge-Googling blog has revealed that only around 50% of our guests actually make use of the special Fridge-Googling search engine.

Those that do are rewarded with an amazing array of recipes, tailored to the ingredients they have keyed in, and no doubt many a pork chop has been saved! But what of the others? My theories run as follows:

1) they are for some reason apprehensive about trying the radical new fridge-Googling technology :)
2) they are not hungry (that always does it)
3) their refrigerator is so tragically empty that not even Fridge-Googling can help
4) there is so much other interesting stuff to read on this site that they never get round to actually searching! (this last possibility I find the least likely!)

But I would like to encourage all the Fridge-non-Googlers that it is perfectly safe! Just type a list of ingredients (try to spell them right! You wouldn't believe how many people can't spell "tomato"!), add the word "recipe" for good measure, and click search. Your culinary sixth-sense should do the rest! Happy Fridge-Googling!

Pork-chops saved by fridge-Googling!

OK, so food supplies are running low. You look in your freezer (OK, so this would be freezer-Googling) and find a set of pork chops, like so.

Now you could just stick them in the oven for half an hour and eat the mediocre results with some mashed potato. Or you COULD fridge-Google for your dinner, and turn these humble pork chops into a veritable feast!

But first, surely that can't be ALL we have in the house! Another rummage around reveals:

• an onion
• a glass of some cheap red wine (from a carton, eugh!)

... as well as various spices (if you haven't got a good selection of those then not even fridge-Googling is going to help you!) Now I think we might be in business, even with this modest set of ingredients!

The next thing you do is enter these into the fridge-Googling search box (should be one round here somewhere!) - just type pork chops onion red wine and press enter or search.

Hey presto! A list of recipes (mostly!) with these ingredients in should appear! I found an interesting one with just these ingredients on Cooks.com! To be honest, I can't even remember where the link was, but it doesn't matter, because I am sure you can fridge-Google for it yourself!

It goes like this:

Season the pork chops with red paprika, salt and pepper (you do have those, right?!) so they look like the picture on the left! Now that is looking more appetizing already!

I used freshly-ground pepper - it tastes about a million times better.


Next, you need to fry these until they are brown on the outside. You are not frying them to death here, just making sure the taste of the spices gets activated, and the cooking process is begun.

Getting a bit more excited about those boring pork chops now?!


Now you just need to lay the pork chops in a suitable dish, add sliced onion, pour the glass of wine over, and add a couple of bay leaves for good measure. I added those, daring huh!?

That's the great thing about cooking, you are actually allowed to deviate from the recipe, it's not set in stone (except sometimes, when it is really important - knowing when you can improvise is the trick! :)

Doesn't that look awesome! And in case you are thinking I am some kind of genius gourmet chef, well, you are very wrong!


The last step is putting the whole lot in the oven at some medium temperature. You know, not too hot so it burns, not too cool so it takes forever and dries everything out. The exact temperature really isn't that important. Also, I think I covered the dish, so all the wine wouldn't completely evaporate, but get soaked up by all the ingredients.

And that is it! I took it out when I thought it was ready, and this was how it looked at the end!

As for how it tasted, well... my wife is still mentioning it more than a week later! Thanks to fridge-Googling, these pork chops were saved from a frying worse than death!

Fridge-Googling = Google cooking?

There seems to be a rekindling of interest in the subject of fridge-Googling! Number of hits seem to have gone up here, with people searching for recipes with all kinds of ingredients! At some point I would love to include a little box which shows recent searches were - you would be amazed what ingredients people have in their fridges!

Maybe it is unrelated, but could be something to do with a Macmillan Dictionary article from around 5 days ago on our favourite topic!

The article points out that fridge-Googling was earlier known as Google cooking. I kind of prefer the former (i.e. newer) expression - it's more idiomatic, less descriptive, leaves you thinking about the subtle meaning! Strangely, the fount of all knowledge, Wikipedia (and Wiktionary) have only limited reference to both expressions, so any help there would be appreciated!

Anyway, I am planning to start posting links here to recipes that I, or readers have successfully fridge-Googled, but it would be cool if:

a) the ingredients were a little unusual (e.g. carrot, peaches and cinnamon)
b) you actually (successfully) tried cooking the recipe!

Look forward to tasting some of the results!

Tips for fridge-Googling (or any other Googling!)

Smaller number of ingredients

I have noticed that a lot of people are keying long lists of ingredients into the Fridge-Googling recipe search engine. When you are using a search engine, it IS always better to be precise - you are more likely to find exactly what you are looking for.

But this example of a recent search:

2 eggs lettuce cucumbers avacado shredded cheese tortillas cauliflower oranges bananas miracle whip salad dressings pickles relish milk bell peppers

...is probably a little TOO detailed! (by the way, it's avOcado) You may end up with NO recipe results with that one (especially if you spell something wrongly) - and when did you last cook anything with that many ingredients, anyway?!

Try a smaller selection of ingredients initially - I am envious you have that much food in your refrigerator! Then you can narrow it down by adding extra ingredients once you see you are on the right track.


Exclude certain ingredients

If some of the recipes that are coming up in the results include ingredients that you do not have in your fridge, you can add them to the search box too, but put a minus (-) before the name of that food item and this food will be excluded from the results.

e.g.:
eggs tomato cheese -ham

will give you all those recipes which contain eggs, tomato, cheese, but not ham! Because you don't have that in your fridge!

Clever huh! Happy fridge-Googling and happy cooking!

History of the term "fridge-Googling"

You would think it is fairly easy to find the first occurrence of the phrase "fridge-Googling" in reference to the activity of finding recipes using a search engine, more specifically, using Google, by keying in the ingredients you have in your fridge. The name "Google" has only been around since 1998, according to their corporate history page:
http://www.google.com/corporate/history.html

People were no doubt search-engine-cooking before then, only it was fridge-Lycosing, or fridge-Altavista-ing. The term Fridge-Googling is cited by the Guardian in October 2004 in a little snippet about the phenomenon.

However, this Nov. 2005 blog entry talks about the phenomenon, but interestingly does not use the term "fridge-Googling".

Word-Spy cites the use of the word, apart from in the 2004 Guardian text, in a couple of sources from 2006, which is way too late! Can anyone find an early quote than the Guardian one? Who invented the term fridge-Googling? Someone must know!

Simply Recipes added

Just added another great site, or blog rather, to the Fridge-Googling Search Engine:

www.elise.com/recipes

A great site - why do I get the feeling these great-looking recipes were not just "Googled" out of thin air!

I must admit, when I am Fridge-Googling, I am usually also looking for keywords like "quick" "easy" and "for idiots"...

Recipe sources

By the way, the Fridge-Googling Search Engine gets its results primarily from some of the major recipe database sites. I do not have any affiliation with them, they have just come up in my fridge-Googling results time and time again, and I am happy to include them.

If you feel your site is a good source of recipes (and it is well indexed by Google, or it won't be much use!) then drop me a line and I will be happy to include your site! It would be nice to get a link back, of course.

The Fridge-Googling Search Engine currently searches the following sites:

www.cooks.com
allrecipes.com
www.epicurious.com
www.recipesource.com
www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/

Must be off, I think dinner is ready... Wonder what Mrs. D has Fridge-Googled up for us tonight!