As I've noticed that many people here use NEI to look up recipes, I'd like to advertise a bit for Craft Guide, which is in my opinion far better than NEI.
Benefits of CraftGuide over NEI:
- It does automatically scan all recipes ingame and therefore knows all of them without relying on plugins or other stuff. Just hit G and you get crafting recipes for all mods immediately. Hit G while hovering over an item and you get only those for that item.
- In addition the lack of an API also means that you do not need to wait for others to update their plugins every time the game updates.
- It does not contain the cheat modes, which many might like if they actually try to play "legit". There is always "/gamemode 1" to enter creative mode if you actually need to cheat (and this is usually better sorted than NEI)
- Recipes are displayed much cleaner and better arranged. You can even resize the window that display the recipes to have to display up to as many recipes as fit on your screen.
- It does remember the last reciped you looked up. Just went back to the crafting table and forgot how the recipe looked like? Hit G and it will be displayed again.
After having to use NEI for a few days when 1.4.6 came out, I am so happy to be able to return to Craft Guide after that (imo) horrible experience. It is very clear how much more polished Craft Guide is over NEI, everything just works smoother and as you would expect it in contrast to the many minor quirks of NEI.