Cooking your fridge empty, and what this app will not do

Fridge-clearing means making a meal out of what is already there instead of shopping again. Korean households have a word for it, 냉장고 털기. It is not a technique so much as a reversal of order. Normally you pick a dish and then buy the ingredients; here you start from the ingredients and pick a dish.

That is why recipe sites fit badly. They are organised around dish names, so starting from ingredients means searching one dish at a time and comparing ingredient lists by eye. With two ingredients or more that comparison slips out of your hands quickly.

And the awkward ingredients split into two kinds. A whole box of potatoes someone gave you is a burden because there is so much of it; a half-carton of cream is a burden because it sits there taking up room. The two want different answers. The first only shrinks in a dish that uses a lot of it. The second is solved the moment any dish uses it.

Three steps. No account, no sign-in.

• Put what you have too much of in the left box. Type an ingredient name, candidates appear, tap one to add it. Korean initial consonants work too.
• Put the small leftovers in the right box. Add as many as you like.
• Dishes line up below. Dishes using both boxes come first. Tap one for ingredients and method.

One box on its own is fine. Add only 감자 and dishes heavy in potato come first; add only 생크림 and you get dishes using cream. Filling both boxes is where this app earns its keep.

This section is about this app specifically. The rules are written out rather than hidden.

• Dishes using both boxes come first. That is the reason this app exists.
• Next comes how many leftover ingredients a dish uses. Few dishes use them, so being used at all is worth a lot.
• Then how many plentiful ingredients it uses, then their share of the dish by weight. A high share is what actually empties the box.
• If those tie, a dish with fewer ingredients comes first, because that is less shopping.
• If everything ties, the source record number decides, so the order is the same every time you look.

The merging rule is written out too. Spelling variants are merged only when a preparation word is separated by a space. So 다진 마늘 merges into 마늘, but dried and fresh shiitake stay apart, because they are different things in a fridge. 대파, 파 and 쪽파 stay separate as well.

Weight counts only where the source printed grams. An ingredient written only as a pinch or to taste counts as zero weight. That does not mean it is absent from the dish, only that the source gave no weight. A low share may simply be this.

Things that help on a first go.

• Type a short fragment of the name. 파프 brings up 노랑 파프리카 alongside 파프리카.
• The number beside a candidate is how many dishes use it. A bigger number usually means the more common spelling.
• If one ingredient is split across several spellings, add all of them. A dish appears if any one matches.
• Added something by mistake? Tap the added ingredient again to remove it.

Things that become obvious after a few goes.

• Load the right box with several leftovers. A dish shows up if any one of them matches, so scanning the fridge door and adding everything is the easier way round.
• A dish where your plentiful ingredient is over 30% by weight makes a real dent in one meal. The share is printed on each result line.
• The ingredient page lists dishes by how much of that ingredient goes in. For clearing one thing in a hurry that page is faster.
• Turn on keeping the list in this browser and it is still there next time. It never goes to a server.

The sticking points first, then the things we deliberately avoid.

• An ingredient is missing - this data is a collection of reduced-sodium and reduced-sugar recipes, so it does not contain every ingredient. When it is absent we say so.
• An ingredient name is split oddly - the source is written that way. Fixing it would put us at odds with the original, so we left it.
• The share shows 0% - the source printed no weight for that ingredient. It is still in the dish.

From here on, things we could do and choose not to.

• Swapping a missing ingredient for something similar - no. Only an exact name is added; near matches are shown for you to choose.
• Suggesting substitutes - no. Which ingredient stands in for which is not in the source, so making it up is inventing.
• Polishing the recipe wording - no. The ministry's text is shown as written.
• Diet, weight loss or health claims - no. Energy and nutrition are shown as printed and no further.
• Making you feel bad about food waste - no. Clearing a fridge is thrift, not something to apologise for.
• Accounts and server storage - none. Your fridge list lives only in your own browser, and only if you turn that on.