R

ecently Bing, Microsoft’s search engine, added a simple recipe search feature based on a single ingredient. Without all of the articles, how-to’s and menu plans of dedicated cooking sites, Bing’s uncluttered offering gives harried cooks a quick answer to the question that plagues many of us around six o’clock each evening, “What’s for dinner?”?

Like any good recipe, the secret of success on Bing is to follow the directions. Start with a single ingredient, like chicken — not chicken pot pie or chicken curry. Type it into the search bar. Once the results page pops up, look to the left and select the first listing for chicken recipes in the column. Voila! You will see a clean, uncluttered listing for chicken recipes (including a clear photograph where available), a user rating from one to five stars, an occasional brief description and, if you’re lucky, a pair of indicator bars for a general idea of fat and calories. ?

If a dish catches your eye, click on the title and you will see a clean page with the recipe. Thankfully, Bing does not launch you out onto the recipe’s home site. Of course, you may visit the site at your leisure — the link is included — but for the moment, the goal is to get dinner going without any distractions.?Those with picky eaters or who crave a particular cuisine may use the easy-to-navigate categories on the left of the main recipe results page to satisfy most any appetite. Refine results by 16 cuisine types ranging from American to Thai, by convenience factor (including kid-friendly), and my personal favorite: fake it — don’t make it.?Options to specify the occasion, additional main ingredient, course and cooking method are also available. Realize that each time you select an additional requirement, the recipes are selected from the previous group. Think of it as a one-way filter; there’s really no easy way to go back without starting a new search. ?

Bing recipe search works best if you keep the search filters to a minimum. This feature is still in its infancy, and it is evident the database needs some fine-tuning. Even with several browsers available to me (Firefox, Chrome, Internet Explorer), I only got one page of recipe results, but as I added a cuisine to my search new recipes cropped up, so the recipes are in the database but not visible beyond a single page. It was encouraging to note a small box in the lower right hand corner requesting feedback.?The Bing Community post claims recipes from “a number of popular recipe websites like delish.com, MyRecipes.com, and epicurious.com,” but after an exhaustive search of ingredients, I did not find a single recipe from Epicurious, the Web site for recipes from “Gourmet Magazine” and “Bon Appetit.” A Microsoft spokesperson confirmed Epicurious is a content partner and that they are “in the process of integrating Epicurious recipes into the experience.”?

Once these recipes are added, the Bing recipe search will be far more comprehensive, but for now I’ll settle for dinner on the table — Skillet Lemon Chicken or Rosemary Chicken??

Ogden-based TopTenREVIEWS.com guides consumers by comparing products in the world of technology, including electronics, software and Web services. Have a question for TopTenREVIEWS? E-mail Leslie Meredith at leslie@toptenreviews.com.