Jamie Oliver What's Cooking DS

Josie Campbell's review of Jamie Oliver What's Cooking. Subscribe to this column via RSS or Newsletter.

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Column:
Domestic Gamer

Format:
DS

Genre:
Improvement

Written on:
26/01/2009

I'm always on the look out for new recipes, so was excited when this arrived in my kitchen. If you like cooking and you like Jamie Oliver this is right up your street!

The recipes in the interactive cook book are the quality and style you would expect from Jamie, lots of fresh looking tasty recipes with simple to follow instructions. It's easy to look for recipes using different search filters.

There is everything from week night essentials like meatballs, shepherds pie and crumble to more adventurous diner party fare like Swordfish with salsa rossa and mascarpone and raspberry tarts. My kids love the Penne with sausage tomato and cream!

Voice recognition means the recipe moves to the next step when you tell it to, so messy cooks don't need to get their consoles covered in food! Each recipe gives information on preparation time and even a built in timer.

Being able to create your own shopping list is a great idea, and you can add as many recipes and their ingredients to your shopping list as you like, which means you could use easily Jamie's recipes for your weekly meal plan. Although a bit fiddly you can also manually add in other items to your shopping list. This function is good for those who are never without their DS and even if you aren't used to carrying it around with you, just chucking in your handbag before you leave for the supermarket couldn't be easier.

The food games are fun and maybe something to pass the time whilst at the checkout! But the cooking technique tutorials aren't all that helpful. If you know how to cook they are too obvious and I can't imagine kitchen novices really wanting to spend time learning via this.

Not being an experienced gamer I found the format for this side of the game very fiddly and difficult to use, often finding myself stuck with my spinach soup ready to serve up but unable to work out how get the sour cream to the pan to finish it off. To be honest I rather spend my time making the real thing in my kitchen than playing this.

Being a busy mum of three I will certainly be making room Jaime's interactive cookbook on my worktop, if I can just extract the DS from my husband and kids long enough to do my shopping list!

Written by Josie Campbell

Josie Campbell writes the Domestic Gamer column. "As quite a domesticated mum of three I love the thought that Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, DS lite and PSP games can have a practical role around the home and enriching everyday life but also fun to chill out and unwind with too. Here are my Domestic Gamer review, join me to read about all sorts of games, from cooking, health, and family ones too."

Josie Campbell's recent reviews:

• Nintendo Crossword Collection
• Electrolux Ergorapido
• Your Shape
• Family Games Night

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