Cooking With the iPhone, Pt. 1
Posted by David | Filed under blog
I’d like to start a new mini-series looking at cooking using apps for the iPhone. There have been some excellent cooking apps made for both the iPhone and iPad, and you shouldn’t overlook them as an alternative to wielding around big, thick cooking books. Not only do they excel in convenience, but some handily best paper books when it comes to features and being adaptive to the needs of maneuvering a kitchen.
I recently picked up the Jamie Oliver 20 Minute Meals app, which is both sparse and robust at the same time. The app only contains about sixty recipes (at the time of this article; a few new recipes were just added, which means more could come in future updates as well), but it makes up for lack of recipe bulk by really optimizing the amount of detail in those offered.
All of the recipes contain both flashcard-style cooking steps that you can flip through, as well as pictures of each step for visual reference. It couldn’t be easier to step through a meal. In addition there are a host of videos detailing commonly needed kitchen topics, such as knife techniques, how to prepare garlic (surprisingly informative), tips on purchasing fish, how to make a basic risotto, cooking the perfect steak, etc. All are kept brief but thoroughly approachable, in Jamie’s trademark style. There is also a great shopping list feature. Any recipes (or multiple recipes) can be dumped into the shopping list and then organized by either items or by sections of the grocery store. It’s actually one of the best shopping lists I’ve used on the iphone, and in a bit of forward thinking you can also just enter in your own items, so are not limited to just using it for app recipes.
To try out the app, I opted for making his “Spicy Cod with Lemon Zucchini Couscous.” The dish turned out great, and was quite tasty, not to mention a nice change from some of the things I might normally think to cook. It’s amazing how expertly a single red chile and a teaspoon of cumin can add rich flavor to a pot of food for four people.
My main complaint with the app – as well as with Jamie and other cookbook chefs in general – is that they almost always, without fail, underestimate two things about “average” kitchens and grocery store selections. The first thing is that it easily took me twice as long as the stated “20 minute meal” title of the app suggests. Part of this I think can be attributed to the simple fact that I’m spending time reading steps to an unfamiliar recipe. There is definitely some wasted time there that could be trimmed away with repeat visits. But also, I notice that demonstration cooks always are working on gas ranges, which heat and are ready to go WAY faster than my humble conventional coil range. And I don’t think I’m in the minority with that, as I hardly know anyone with a gas setup in their home (although personally I would love to have one).
The second thing might be due to regional food differences (as Jamie is a Brit and I’m just a lowly Yank), but I often run across ingredients in both his books and with others that I just can’t find at my local “normal” grocery store. That’s not to say that I couldn’t find something tucked away in a farther off Whole Foods, but I would love it if cookbook authors had a better grasp on non-cosmopolitan grocery store selections. I had to just skip over several recipes when selecting my first item to cook (first! not the last in a long series) because I knew I would have to hunt around for a specific ingredient or three. Time and immediate availability of ingredients is crucial when you’re aiming a book at the “make something quickly after work” crowd, because even though I have international markets or specialty shops at my disposal in the greater range of the city, you immediately negate the effectiveness of a quick-and-easy cookbook by making me drive around the city to hit up three different ingredient locales. For non-perishable items, like spices or pastes, that’s fine to stock up ahead on pantry items. But for produce, it becomes a time deal-breaker.
All in all, the good outweighs the bad with this app (as some of the bad is not really unique to this app) and it’s en easy recommendation for those who are already fans of Jamie’s style and food, or even just those looking for a super-handy way to plan for and cook more quick-ish meals in their busy life.
When last we left you, I teased a new feature/series/focus for the website related to a new cookery book of almost mythic girth. A thousand-page testament to food on paper that we would not only use in exercise by simply picking up, but also something that we would be cooking from. And I’m here to tell you a little bit more about that.
