A friend of mine wishes to disable EMI's interface (the sidebars and search bar, via EMI's keybind), but still wishes to use the recipe lookup feature for items in their inventory (i.e. pressing "R" while hovering over an item shows the recipe(s) for the item, etc.)

This does not currently appear to be possible. It would bring them great catharsis if it were.

try this: https://mods.gay/distraction-free-recipes

has a few issues though it seems