Deep-dish pizza, mango crepes & more: How I learnt to love cooking again with a multi-function smart cooker

There have been periods in my life when I have cooked quite regularly.

I really enjoyed the process of trying out new techniques and recipes, jamming out to music while cooking, and then indulging in the fruits of my labour — not to mention the money I saved by cooking at home rather than ordering delivery or buying takeaway.

But after I started working full-time a few years ago, cooking every night — or even a couple times a week — always felt like an enormous, tiring task. And needing to clean up afterwards only added to the gargantuaness of cooking.

So, when I was asked to try out TOKIT’s Omni Cook, a smart cooker that is meant to replace 21 different kitchen devices and even has a self-cleaning function, I was intrigued. Could this device help reinvigorate my enjoyment of cooking?

Cooking with the Omni Cook for a weekend

The Omni Cook came with several different components to it:

• A mixing bowl with a mixing blade, used for cooking and processing the food
• The main machine, which contains the engine used to operate the mixing bowl, as well as an interactive screen for choosing the functions and recipes
• A scraper
• A whisk
• A set of measuring spoons
• A measuring cup that doubles as a inlet cover on the lid
• A simmering basket for cooking rice, and filtering and washing fruit, meat, or vegetables

My task: to make a variety of recipes using the Omni Cook and its different functions. The machine comes with 15 pre-set functions I can use, as well as many recipes that I can select right on the machine itself.

Potato soup

The first recipe I decided to make was a potato soup recipe, straight from the Omni Cook’s own recipe catalogue.

The first step was to add 100g of diced onion and 70g of bacon into the mixing bowl.

The benefit of using Omni Cook’s recipes, I found, was that each recipe actually walked me through, step by step.

On each step, it gave me instructions for exactly what and how much to add. Then, all I had to do was click the round knob. All of the parameters required for the step, including time, temperature, and speed, are all preset.

One of the functions that I found extremely useful was the in-built weighing scale, which I used here for making sure I added the right amount of onions.

Next, I needed to smash the onion and bacon in the mixing bowl. All I had to do was put the lid onto the mixing bowl and press the button, and the machine did its thing.

To cook the onion and bacon mixture, all I needed to do, again, was press a button. Suddenly, the mixing bowl became a pot, and it cooked the ingredients while slowly pushing them around.

I didn’t need to use a separate skillet to do so, and I didn’t even need to stir it myself because the mixing blade within the bowl was automatically doing it.

This came in handy later on in the recipe as well, when it was time to boil the potatoes.

And I think my favorite thing about this recipe was that it was all made in one pot. Normally, after cooking the potatoes, one would need to blend it using an immersion blender (or, since I’m not fancy enough to own one of those, blend the cooked mixture in a regular blender).

However, with the Omni Cook all I had to do was go to the next step, make sure to cover the lid fully (I wasn’t going to risk getting burnt by the boiling liquid), and press the button; it blended the mixture right within the exact same bowl.

The soup, which I ate alongside a sandwich, was smooth, delicious, and still piping hot, and I have to say I was pretty darn proud of myself for making it (even though it was literally the machine that did all the work).

Then it came to the most dreaded part about cooking: cleaning up afterwards.

But thankfully, the Omni Cook has another highly-useful function: the pre-clean function. I added a drop of dishwashing liquid into the mixing bowl, one litre of water, and selected the pre-clean function.

1.5 minutes later, the mixing bowl was ready to be washed. After I poured out the soapy liquid, I found that the bowl was almost completely clean already. All I had to do was quickly run my sponge along the inside to ensure there was nothing else, rinse, and I was done with cleaning the Omni Cook.

And because every part of the recipe was cooked within the Omni Cook, I didn’t have any other appliances to wash. Just a knife, a cutting board, and the bowl and plate I used at dinner, and I was done for the night.

Deep-dish pizza

The next night, we had some friends over to make deep-dish pizza. I have never made homemade pizza before so this was quite a big task, but I figured that with the help of the Omni Cook, it would hopefully be easier.

Making the pizza dough basically just involved adding everything to the mixing bowl and letting it “knead” it.

To be completely honest, I was pretty sceptical about the kneading process. Wouldn’t the blade just mix it?

But nope. Look at that beautifully kneaded pizza dough.

Next, it was time to make the pizza sauce, but first we needed to clean the mixing bowl, as there were remnants of the sticky dough inside it still.

I was absolutely astonished to see that after using the pre-clean mode, there was almost no dough at all left in the bowl.

Do note that the blade in the mixing bowl is very sharp, which makes for very effective blending and mincing. However, this also means that it is important to exercise caution when cleaning and handling the blade, in order to avoid injury.

After adding the ingredients for the sauce into the bowl, it needed to cook for about 20 minutes, so I went to hang out with my friends in the living room. The automatic stirring of the mixing blades meant that, unlike cooking it over the stovetop, I wouldn’t need to be present to manually stir the sauce to prevent it from burning.

I had originally thought that the recipe would require more help from my friends, but it turned out that because the machine handled most of it, I was able to just ask them to relax and chill in the living room while I (a.k.a. the Omni Cook) managed things.

Once the sauce was cooked, we lined some baking trays with the pizza dough, topped it with chorizo, lots of cheese, and spoonfuls of sauce, and let it bake.

The deep-dish pizza was delicious, and we all collectively agreed that we should definitely make the recipe again.

Frozen lemonade

After we stuffed ourselves with deep-dish pizza, I decided to make us all a nice, refreshing cup of frozen lemonade.

This recipe was a bit more complicated to make with the Omni Cook than the two prior recipes, because I wanted to use this lemonade recipe that I always use, rather than the one pre-loaded on the Omni Cook.

There was a bit of a learning curve trying to figure out how to use the preset modes to do what I needed for the recipe. For example, I couldn’t figure out how to boil the sugar syrup. So instead, I problem-solved a bit and I used the sauce boiling step within the deep-dish pizza recipe I had used, but instead of tomatoes and other sauce ingredients, I added sugar and water, and adjusted the time, temperature, and blade speed, and I’m proud to say that it worked like a charm.

(I later found out that I actually could have just used the steaming mode, which can reach 110°C, or the manual mode to set the temperature I wanted. Oops, I made that harder for myself than it could have been.)

When I normally make lemonade, I squeeze the lemons with the help of a manual citrus juicer, which can be pretty time-consuming and tiring.

So I was fascinated to find that there is a lemon squeezing step in the Omni Cook’s built-in lemonade recipe. I was sceptical at first and thought it would just blend the lemons, but I was pleased (and shocked) to find that it actually worked.

The ice crushing mode made it super easy to blend the ice together with the lemon juice and sugar syrup into the perfect frozen lemonade.

Spaghetti and meatballs

Another recipe that I tried making was spaghetti and meatballs. I’ve made my fair share of pasta in the past, but I’ve never made meatballs before, as mincing the meat for it seemed like a daunting task.

But with mincing as one of the Omni Cook’s functions, I figured this was the perfect time to try it out.

The meatballs turned out delicious, and there was so much leftover spaghetti and meatballs that we ate it for several days more.

Mango crêpes

To round off the weekend of cooking, we made some delicious mango crepes for breakfast.

The batter ingredients were blended into a smooth consistency in no time, which we then cooked in a skillet.

I then used the Omni Cook’s whisk to make some whipped cream to top the crepes with, alongside some fresh mango.

Cooking with the Omni Cook for a weekend

After using the Omni Cook for a weekend, I definitely found joy in cooking again. The Omni Cook’s step-by-step guidance for its inbuilt recipes allowed me to make recipes I normally wouldn’t be confident to try.

The Omni Cook is designed as a space-saving smart cooker, able to replace 21 different kitchen appliances, including a grinder, a scale, a fermenter, an ice breaker, a meat mincer, and more. Imagine all the money and space you could save by not having to buy all of those separate appliances.

Whereas I normally may have needed to use multiple different appliances, such as my blender for the potato soup or a pot over the stove for my pizza sauce, I was able to prepare and cook the majority of my recipes in the Omni Cook itself.

This, together with the pre-clean mode, also made cleaning up much more streamlined, which I really appreciated because I truly despise having to do extensive cleanup after having cooked and eaten a filling meal.

To find out more about TOKIT’s Omni Cook or to purchase one for yourself at US$899 (S$1,228.21), head over to TOKIT’s website.

This sponsored article brought to you by TOKIT made the author really proud of her (and the Omni Cook’s) cooking skills.

All photos and gifs by Jane Zhang, unless otherwise indicated.