Hands on with Pocket Chef on mobile

Given how frequently meals get burnt to a crisp due to ill-advised text messaging or longer-than-intended conversations on the phone, you wouldn't be blamed for thinking mobiles and cooking don't mix. After all, one can only take so many fricasseed batches of chocolate chip cookies before throwing in the apron.

Yet Gameloft just might help you turn your culinary fortunes around using the very instrument of your demise. Pocket Chef, a combination mobile cookbook and assorted one button mini-games, bridges the gap between obsessive fondling of your phone and cooking. And our first look at the game has definitely proved tasty.

When you enter the kitchen for the first time, Pocket Chef introduces you to a cast of seven characters modelled after real cooking personalities. Pick one and you're ready to tackle either of the two available modes: Cooking Tour or Instant Cook. Cooking Tour takes you through a career of sorts, travelling amongst several locations to learn new recipes. Over 50 in total will be available in the final game, spanning various types of food from Mexican to Italian to Japanese. Naturally, you're welcome to tackle any of these recipes individually in Instant Cook mode.

Each recipe is laid out in diagram form before you begin cooking, which is helpful in knowing the number of steps required to complete the dish. Every meal has been pulled from real cuisine, so you won't find any odd concoctions or unappealing mixtures here. From omelettes to chicken nuggets to banana milkshakes and even a burger, there's a little bit of everything. Pocket Chef certain follows in line with Taito's own Cooking Mama, but the number of recipes is greater and have been carefully modelled to mimic actual preparation in the kitchen. In other words, follow the recipes in your own kitchen and you'll ideally end up with the same results.

Take the banana shake as an example. Of course, bananas provide the foundation for your delicious treat; as such, you need to cut up bananas with taps of the '5' key. Apples provide a nice addition, so you need to peel one with a parring knife and then cut it up. Before blending the fruit together in a blender, you need to season with sugar and salt (just a little to enhance the flavours of the fruit). A splash of milk and you're ready to blend. A watchful eye is vital for blending, since you can't allow the shake to overflow from too many taps of the '5' key.

Another successfully completed dish – the burger – also mirrored those steps necessary for creating the real thing. First came onion chopping, done by positioning a knife along dotted lines and then hitting the '5' key to slice. Next, you incorporate seasoning into the ground beef in a bowl using '4' and '6' to stir. With patties and onion slices ready for grilling, you put them on the fire and flip them using a spatula. As soon as the food is cooked, you're able to assemble the burgers by playing a memory game. The order in which to place the ingredients appears on the screen, after which you input the correct sequence.

While at this stage we're not entirely convinced Pocket Chef differentiates itself enough from Cooking Mama, there's definitely a lot more content – 50-plus recipes is hard to pass up and the mini-games feel more finely-tuned. So we'll happily sit at the table snacking on other digital creations while waiting for the finished article to be served up.

A summer release has been slated for North America, but expect a UK launch before the end of the month.