The HomeCook's Playbook
This project is a mobile app prototype aimed at understanding and exploring the user experience of homecooks who use flavour pairing books such as the Flavor Bible and how this may be transformed through a mobile app.
Lately, I’ve been reaching for TikTok or YouTube over my cookbooks when I need kitchen inspiration. It’s no surprise — the internet offers endless (and free!) recipes and food content from every cuisine imaginable. The rise of food influencers on my feed has pushed me to try new dishes and experiment with ingredients I’d never even heard of before. What began as a habit of exploring TikTok for recipe inspiration quickly turned into a pantry full of unfamiliar, one-time-use specialty ingredients. As someone who rarely eats the same meal twice, I started looking for creative ways to repurpose these items using the groceries I already had. This challenge sparked the idea for The Homecooks Playbook — a tool designed to help home cooks make the most of their ingredients and discover new meals with ease.
Overview
How do home cooks stay inspired in the kitchen?
To try new flavours? To use up specialty ingredients? To use up old groceries?
Project Type
Role
Tools
Duration
Mobile App Prototype
User Research
Wireframing
Prototyping
May- Aug 2023
Figma
Glide
Passionate home cooks love trying new cuisines and flavours but don't often know how to utilise unfamiliar ingredients without having to buy even more ingredients to follow another recipe. Budget constraints and a desire to minimize waste make it challenging to create new meals using what's already on hand.
The Problem
A flavour-pairing mobile application, inspired by reference books such as The Flavor Bible that aims to enhance any home cook’s recipe R&D experience by providing an easy search and filtering solution that empowers curious home cooks to experiment with new cuisines while making the most of what they already have —
The Solution
Comparative Analysis
Research
Does a flavour-pairing tool already exist?
The answer? Yes- of course, with the primary source being the Flavor Bible by Andrew Dornenburg and Karen A. Page. Used by millions of professional chefs worldwide, the book aptly describes itself as 'the essential guide to culinary creativity and flavour exploration. Utilised in recipe R&D by professionals over the world, there is no shortage to users wanting a digital, user-friendly version to use on the go. Yet, there is no official 'Flavor Bible' app as of yet. Below are some quotes from online users on cooking-related forum sites expressing this exact desire.
Anyone who knows a good flavor pairing app by any chance? I love the flavor bible for example but the book is not that portable so I’m looking for something more on the spot accessible.”
“Somebody should make a digital,cross reference-able version of [the Flavor Bible], so that your could plug in any number of combinations of main ingredients or spices or sauces, and see what kind of output you get for those that overlap each other.”
“I'm on the go and am curious about something that would pair well with something else and then end up forgetting to look when I get home. Are there any good flavor pairing websites that I can use when I don't have immediate access to the book?”
Below, I compare the strengths and weaknesses of some existing online food pairing search engine tools. Overall, I found that most alternatives demonstrate a simple search and filtering solution to food pairings but additional features such as saving desired pairings rarely exist.
This case study is currently under redesign :
The finished high fidelity wireframes can be found here!
