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The Best Mobile Apps for Professional Cooking

Jun 27th 2016 - Guest Blog, 

The Best Mobile Apps for Professional Cooking

Let’s be honest. Can we do anything anymore without accessing the internet or using an app? It is so convenient to have whatever we need to know at our fingertips. This is especially true when we are cooking and attempting to meet deadlines in the kitchen. Cooking with your iPhone becomes much easier when you have recipes, necessary ingredients, and culinary hints availability immediately.

There seems to be a consensus of opinion out there about the best mobile apps when it comes to cooking. Let’s take a look at the top five and the features and advantages of each.

The Professional Chef by the Culinary Institute of America

If you long for the early days of learning to cook, when you had an experienced teacher or mentor giving you advice and providing recipes, then this is the app for you.  Part one of The Professional Chef provides a culinary school approach, covering everything from the running of a professional kitchen to menu developing. Part two provides in-depth descriptions of kitchen tools and cooking equipment, including how to clean pots and pans. A chapter on meats shows cuts of meat with their location on the animal and cooking tips for each cut. The chapters on fruits and vegetables include varieties, excellent images, and common uses.

This app has additional detailed sections for spices, grains, and dairy. Stocks and pastries are just two of the other foods covered by category. Recipes, instructional videos, and beautiful pictures accompany each topic and recipe. It is well worth the $49.99 expense. (Available from iTunes)

Cook's Illustrated

The major advantages of Cook's Illustrated is that it is free (available on iOS) – that’s the basic app. You do need a subscription to have access to all this app provides. However, many recipes are included in the free app for you to try and then you can decide if you want a subscription.

Finding a recipe is very easy with the search and browse feature.   As with other comprehensive cooking apps, you have a shopping list feature.  Also included are the following features:

  • A built-in timer for each recipe to help you stay on task
  • Step-by-step how-to videos
  • Fifty of Cook’s Illustrated’s  all-time best recipes
  • Supermarket Ingredient Reviews (which to buy and which to avoid)

To unlock the member’s only recipes and have access to the majority of the ingredient reviews, requires an on-line companion membership fee of $34.95.

Epicurious Recipes & Shopping List

Available on Android (free), B&N Nook Color ($4.99), iOS (free), Kindle Fire (free), Windows Phone (free); the availability and access to over 28,000 recipes; and the ability to share recipes on Twitter, Facebook, and with email make this app a must-have.

The recipes come from Bon Appétit and Gourmet magazines, food personalities, and top chefs. You can type in the name of what you wish to prepare and you are guaranteed a number of recipes from which to choose. Recipes are searchable by text or voice-to-text. The step-by-step mode shows only what you need for the next step.  There is the requisite grocery list generator, also.

There is nothing fancy about this app. For instance, it has no videos. It does, however, have a number of useful categories, such as a section for holiday cocktails. The strength of this app is the number of recipes available and the ease with which you can access them.

How to Cook Everything

The title of this app says it all. For only $4.99 (iOS), the app provides 2,000 recipes and 400 how-to illustrations.  This app also includes:

  • A built-in recipe timer
  • Voiceovers by Mark Bittman (author of the book upon which this app is based)
  • Search function – by key ingredients, style, cooking technique, and type
  • Weekly featured recipes
  • Ability to enter notes
  • Holiday menus
  • A vegetarian version
  • A shopping list

This is definitely an app that lives up to its name and an excellent resource.

iCookbook

The most awesome feature of this app is the voice-command. You can use commands such as “back” and “next” to move through a recipe, keeping your hands free for cooking. You can set up to three timers and choose play, pause, cancel, or close. You can also skip to numbered steps in the recipe using voice commands.

Every month iCookbook offers a free package of seasonal recipes available for download by accessing the iCookbook store in the lower right corner of the screen. The store also has for purchase special sets of recipes, particularly useful for the holidays or special occasions. A set of twenty-five recipes is $1.99 and thirty-five recipes is $2.99. iCookbook is available on Android ($7.99), iOS ($4.99), webOS ($4.99), or Windows 8/RT ($4.99).

Of course, these are not all the apps available. But for the chef who needs variety and quick access, these five are the best available right now.