Bouillon Road
For iPhone · United States & Canada

Bouillon Road

Half a bottle of fish sauce isn't the end of a dinner. It's the start of a road.

You bought a jar for one dish, and it has been on the shelf ever since. Tell Bouillon Road what's left, and it draws a thread across the world map to your next few dinners, each from a different kitchen and each picked because it uses that jar up.

Coming soonto the App Store
A thread across a world map A simplified world map. A red thread runs from a jar of fish sauce through two cooked stops, then splits into three dashed branches toward kitchens on other continents. The top branch is labelled: minus two tails, plus one new. fish sauce −2 tails · +1 new
An illustration of the idea: one jar, a few cooked stops, three ways forward.

Who it's for

For home cooks in the United States and Canada who like other kitchens' food and keep getting stuck on one ingredient.

It's the thing your supermarket doesn't carry, or the bottle you opened for a single tablespoon. Most recipe apps ask what you feel like tonight. Bouillon Road asks what's left, and lets that answer choose where dinner goes next.

Key feature one

The Road: what's left picks the next kitchen

Leftover rare ingredients live on your Shelf as tails. The Road looks at them and offers three to five next dinners from other world kitchens that use them up.

Each suggestion carries its tail balance, like −2 tails · +1 new: it finishes two of your leftovers and asks for one ingredient you don't have yet. The better the balance, the higher it sits.

  • The next stop always comes from a kitchen other than the last one.
  • Every dinner you cook becomes a stop, so the thread on the map grows as you go.
  • Tails don't expire and nothing nags you. A jar simply waits until a recipe closes it.
  • If no recipe uses a tail yet, the app tells you so plainly instead of guessing.
The Road screen A small map with a thread, followed by three suggested dinners. Each card shows the kitchen stamp, the dish and a tail balance badge, plus the leftovers it uses. Road 3 tails on your shelf Coconut curry Another kitchen −2 tails · +1 new fish sauce coconut milk Chickpea stew A third kitchen −1 tail · +0 new chickpeas Noodle soup A fourth kitchen −1 tail · +2 new fish sauce
Illustration of the Road screen. Dish names here are examples.
Key feature two

Shelf Swap: a stand-in, and the truth about it

In a recipe, hard-to-find ingredients carry a small swap chip. Tap it to see one to three stand-ins from an ordinary supermarket, with a ratio and a line about how the taste or texture shifts.

Every option is rated on the drift scale, so you know before the pan is hot whether you're cooking the dish or your own version of it.

  • 1 · Almost the same
    Most people at the table won't notice.
  • 2 · Noticeably different
    Still the same dish, with a different taste or texture.
  • 3 · A different dish
    Good to eat, but now it's your version.
  • An accepted swap counts on the Road too: it keeps a new jar off your shelf.
  • Only ingredients in the app's swap table get a chip. Nothing is improvised for the rest.
A swap sheet An ingredient list where tamarind paste is crossed out and replaced by lime juice with brown sugar. Below, the swap sheet shows the ratio, a note on flavour, and two of three bowls filled for drift level two. INGREDIENTS 2 cups coconut milk on shelf 1 tbsp tamarind paste lime juice + brown sugar swapped 1 tbsp → 2 tsp lime juice + 1 tsp brown sugar Sour-sweet is there; the fruity depth is not. Noticeably different
Illustration of a swap sheet, using a real entry from the swap table.
How a road starts

Three steps, then it keeps going

  1. Put what's left on the Shelf

    On the last welcome screen, tap the jars you already have. After any dinner, the app asks what's left and adds those to the Shelf.

  2. Follow the thread

    Open the Road and pick a next stop. Cook it one step per card, with the screen kept on while you work.

  3. Close tails as you go

    When you finish, mark each leftover as used up or some left. Used-up jars leave the Shelf and the road gains a stop.

Around the two features

The rest of the kitchen

Atlas

Around 25 to 30 world kitchens, each with its own stamp and recipe list. Search recipe names without a connection.

Cook mode

One step per card, swipe for the next. The screen stays on until you reach the last card.

Saved

Tap the heart on any recipe to keep it in Saved, ready for when its turn on the road comes.

Road history

Every stop with its date, kitchen, tails closed and drift, plus how many kitchens you've cooked from. No streaks, no daily goals.

Ingredient filters

Hide recipes whose ingredient list includes pork, beef, or any meat or fish. Filters read ingredient lists only, so always check labels yourself.

Works offline afterwards

The first launch needs the internet for about 30 seconds to download recipes. After that, everything downloaded opens without a connection.

Where the recipes come from

Written by Wikibooks volunteers, credited on every page

Every recipe comes from the Wikibooks Cookbook, shared under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. The app downloads them on first launch, adapts the formatting for a phone screen, and links to the original page and its contributors from every recipe.

Photos come from Wikimedia Commons and appear only when their license allows it, with the author named under the image. Recipes that contain alcohol are left out.

Recipe texts are in English. The app itself speaks English and French (Canada). Bouillon Road is an independent app and is not affiliated with or endorsed by the Wikimedia Foundation.

Privacy, briefly

Your shelf stays in your kitchen

  • No account, no ads, no analytics and no tracking.
  • Your shelf, road, swaps and saved recipes stay on your iPhone. Reset in Settings wipes them.
  • Notifications are optional and run through OneSignal. A short launch check sends our server the app version.

Read the full privacy policy