Cook Mode in Degchi: Step-by-Step Timers That Ring

A dish with six clocks

Look at a proper chicken biryani. Marinate for 30 minutes. Fry the onions for about 10. Cook the gravy for around 15. Parboil the rice for 10. Seal the pot and cook on low for 20. Rest it for 10 more.

That is six waiting times in one dish, and the kitchen is never quiet while you wait. Someone asks a question, the phone locks, the onions go from golden to dark. A recipe on a scrolling web page is not made for this. It is made for reading, not for cooking.

What cook mode looks like

Tap Start cooking at the bottom of any recipe and the screen changes. You see one step at a time, in large text, with a heading such as Step 4 of 8 and a progress bar across the top. Below the step there is a round timer if the step needs one.

• Start begins the countdown. Pause, Resume and Restart appear as you use it.
• −1 min and +1 min adjust the time, because your stove is not the recipe writer's stove.
• Back and Next step move through the dish. Some steps simply say "No timer for this step. Tap Next when you're ready", such as tasting the gravy and adjusting the salt in the biryani.
• The screen stays on, so you do not have to unlock your phone with floury or oily fingers.

The servings you chose on the recipe page carry across, so the amounts you see are the ones you shopped for.

Several timers, one alarm

This is the part that matters most in a busy kitchen. Start the rice timer, move on to the next step, and start another. Your other running timers wait in a small tray labelled Other timers.

If you leave cook mode to answer a message or check the list, Degchi asks "Leave cooking?" and tells you Timers will keep running. When one finishes you get an alarm and the message "Time's up!", with the name of the step that is done.

We tested this on a real phone: with the screen locked and the app in the background, the timer still rang when it finished. That is the difference between a timer app that works on a table and one that works in a real kitchen.

Read-aloud and clean hands

At the bottom of the screen you will see "Wet hands? Turn on read-aloud". Switch it on and Degchi reads each step out loud in the language you chose, so you can keep stirring while it talks.

When you finish

On the last step the button changes to Cooked it! Degchi then asks two quick things. First, "Did anything run low?", so you can mark ingredients that are getting low and have them land on your shopping list. Second, "How was it?", with Loved it and Not for us. Those answers feed into what Degchi suggests next, and into your family's votes if you cook together.

What cook mode takes off your mind

Cooking a long dish is mostly timing. Cook mode takes the timing off your mind.

• One thing on screen at a time, so you never lose your place.
• Timers that run in the background, even when your phone is locked.
• Time adjustments in one tap, for slow ovens and strong stoves.
• Hands-free reading when your hands are busy.
• No ads in cook mode, ever. Degchi shows only two small, clearly labelled "Sponsored" spots in the whole app, and neither is on this screen.

It is just as useful for simpler rice dishes like chicken pulao or matar pulao, where the rice timing is what makes or breaks dinner.

Try it

Degchi is in beta and free to use. If you want a kitchen timer that understands a whole recipe, join the Degchi beta with your Gmail address and tell us how cook mode works for you.