The Best Way to Avoid Eating Rat Meat in China: Cook Yourself With This App

Last week we wrote about online grocery store BenLai.com, and how it aims to be the top provider of quality groceries delivered right to your doorstep. So what’s next after you’ve bought all the grocery from there? Here’s what we’ve found: XiaChuFang (下厨房).

XiaChuFang, which means “to cook”, is available on both mobile and web platforms. It carries a wide selection of recipes, from what you can cook for both breakfast and supper to dishes for vegetarians and weight watchers. When you have decided on what you would like to make, it shows a picture of the end product, along with the ratings and the number of people that have made the dish before. Like any other typical recipe platform, it also tells you the ingredients required as well as the step-by-step instructions (pictured above).

But here’s a little detail that I really like about the iPhone app: When you tilt it horizontally, each individual step goes full screen (pictured right), and a swipe across brings you to the next step. I find it really helpful especially when your hands are all greasy and you don’t have to squint your eyes just to make out what the exact instructions are. I’m sure many who do cook would appreciate this.

There are also little tips that guide you to achieving better results. You can also leave comments, suggestions, complaints, and upload pictures of your completed product too. And it also recommends what other dishes you can cook to go with the ones you’ve picked, along with other related recipes they think you might like. And if you like a particular user’s dishes, there’s an option to follow them too.

You can also choose to “collect recipes”, making them into a collection so you can look back and give it a try while standing in front of the fridge racking your brains over what to cook. Another feature that I find really useful is that you can add the ingredients to the “shopping list”. Once you’re done shopping for that particular ingredient, you can cancel it off with just one tap (pictured below).