Hello, ChefGPT: it's the age of smart cooking technology

Smart appliance delishUp brings the power of Al to the kitchen, hand-holding you through recipes. We put it to the test

- Tushar Kanwar

It may come as a surprise to many but there are ways to harness technology to put food on the table that go beyond firing up Swiggy or Zomato. There is a new breed of smart cooking appliances that help automate parts of the cooking process, guiding even kitchen newbies through the steps while keeping a close eye on the cooking and temperatures so you are not stuck to the cooktop the whole time.

As someone who can cook the basics but rarely expends the effort to experiment beyond the staples, I was intrigued by delish Up (21,999), from the Bengaluru-based smart appliance startup Up. This is a cooking appliance that literally handholds you through its step-by-step recipes to whip up dishes and flavours without requiring any knowledge of techniques and measurements. Sounds too good to be true?

WHAT IS IT, EXACTLY?

At its most basic, delishUp combines a stainless steel jar with a heating coil and a variable speed blade (or a mixer coupled with a one-pot cooker), an integrated weighing scale and an eight-inch Wi-Ficonnected touch screen for access to recipes and device control. You can purchase it in Bengaluru, Mumbai, Delhi and Pune; it will be available in Hyderabad and Chennai next. The set-up is simple-place the jar into the main unit, as you would in a mixer grinder, use the QR-code-based sign-up procedure on your phone to connect the appliance to your home network, and you are set.