The ingredients that hide most often
These are the ones worth knowing by heart, because they turn up in the standard version of the dish almost everywhere.
| Dish | What is usually in it | Who it catches |
|---|---|---|
| Caesar salad | Anchovy in the dressing | Fish allergy, pescatarians who assume it is vegetarian |
| Green curry, many stir-fries | Fish sauce or shrimp paste | Shellfish and fish allergy, vegans |
| Steak, mash, pies, refried beans | Butter, lard or pork fat | Dairy-free, vegetarians, pork avoidance |
| Soy sauce, oyster sauce, many marinades | Wheat (most soy sauce is brewed with it) | Coeliac, gluten intolerance |
| Breads, buns, pastries | Egg wash or milk glaze | Egg and dairy allergy |
| Vegetable soups and risottos | Chicken or fish stock | Vegetarians |
| Marshmallows, jellies, some yoghurts | Gelatine | Vegetarians, halal and kosher diets |
| Bloody Mary, Worcestershire-heavy sauces | Anchovy (Worcestershire) | Fish allergy |
Why "vegetarian" is the riskiest word on a menu
A dish labelled vegetarian in a restaurant that also cooks meat is not a controlled claim the way an allergen declaration is. It usually means no visible meat in the description.
The recurring offenders are stock, fish sauce, shrimp paste, anchovy in dressings, lard in pastry and gelatine in desserts. Thai and Vietnamese vegetarian dishes are the classic case: the kitchen often does not consider fish sauce to be meat, because it is a seasoning.
This is not a reason to avoid eating out. It is a reason to ask, and to know which specific things to ask about rather than asking "is this vegetarian?" and accepting a nod.
The four questions that actually work
- What stock is this made with? — catches chicken and fish stock in soups, risottos, sauces and vegetable dishes.
- Is there fish sauce, shrimp paste or anchovy anywhere in this? — catches the South-East Asian seasoning problem and the Caesar dressing.
- What fat is the pastry or the mash made with? — catches lard, pork fat and butter.
- Does the bread or the sauce contain wheat? — catches the soy sauce problem that catches coeliacs constantly.
For allergies, the menu is not the source of truth
In most countries, allergen information for unpackaged food has to be available on request rather than printed on the menu. That means the menu is the wrong document to read, and the answer comes from a person.
The useful thing a tool can do is tell you where the risk probably is, so you know what to ask about instead of reciting a list of everything. Walking in with "I am coeliac, which dishes have soy sauce or wheat in them?" gets you a better answer than "do you have gluten free options?"
If the restaurant cannot answer clearly, that is the answer. A kitchen that does not know its stock base is a kitchen that cannot feed a coeliac safely.
A menu description is marketing, not a recipe. It names the two or three things that sell the dish and leaves out everything that might put you off. That is not dishonesty, exactly. It is just that nobody writes "contains pork fat" under a pie.
This matters most for the people who cannot simply decide not to care: anyone avoiding pork, anyone coeliac, anyone with a shellfish or nut allergy, and anyone cooking for a vegetarian who has been burned before.
No camera can photograph what is not written down. Hidden ingredients are a recipe question, so this tool reasons about how the dish is normally made rather than looking at it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Reason about the standard recipe rather than the menu description. Classic dishes follow conventions — Caesar dressing contains anchovy, most curry pastes contain shrimp, soy sauce contains wheat — and those are the ingredients menus rarely spell out.