EVERYONE has been there. After wrapping up a tough day at work and spending another hour in the rush hour commute, you finally arrive home. Exhausted and hungry, you don’t feel like moving a finger. It will take at least 30 minutes for the quickest delivery guy to bring your takeout from a nearby restaurant.

    This is where the latest “robot chef” developed by a Wuhan-based company comes in handy.

    Resembling a small fridge from the outside, this novel appliance will deliver a plate of stir-fried potato slivers within three minutes and a bowl of carp soup in 15 minutes.

    The machine consists of three compartments. The major part — in the middle — consists of a rotating frying pan and an electric oven controlled by a computer. With 120 different dishes programed into the machine, it drops various ingredients, adds seasonings step by step accordingly. The top space is where ingredients are contained and the bottom space is where the finished product will be emptied into a plate.

    Around a dozen types of seasonings often used in Chinese dishes, like salt, sugar, vinegar, soy sauce, oil and chili pepper, are stored in the machine, allowing them to be released into the frying pan by measures of 0.1 gram and 0.1 ml. People can choose from five different levels of sour, sweet, salty, spicy flavors as well as different cooking times — the end products vary from barely to thoroughly cooked.

    So prepare the ingredients, drop them into the machine, choose from a panel the dish and how you want it cooked, and poof, in several minutes, it will be cooked for you. Bonus: No smoke is emitted during the cooking process and you don’t have to worry about cleaning the frying pan, as it will be cleaned automatically with water piped into the machine.

    Primarily designed to prepare stir-fried Chinese dishes, the machine is efficient in cooking popular dishes such as stir-fried cucumber and ham, kung pao chicken, tomatoes and eggs as well as potato and pork stew. The taste of the dishes cooked by the “robot chef” is decent enough, according to customers invited to test its products in Shenzhen on Tuesday.

    “All the recipes programed into the machine are developed by engineers in collaboration with professional chefs,” said Luo Yuexiong, head of a Shenzhen company who is helping to market the machine.

    Future updates will allow users to input more recipes to make the “robot chef” more versatile.

    “This machine will be embraced by families whose members (perhaps millennials and single children) know nothing about cooking, small firms that want to offer lunches to their employees or small restaurants that want to save on labor expenses,” Luo said.

    Some frown on the idea that they still have to go grocery shopping, clean, peel and chop the ingredients before they are machine-ready.

    “A lot of work has to be done before the cooking really happens,” a young lady said after trying some potato slivers. “And those steps are the most frustrating for me.”

    That demand gives rise to another big market. “We will provide a delivery service of ready-for-machine ingredients in the future,” Luo said, not giving a specific time for that.

    Open now for presales, the first batch of machines will be delivered in February next year. Priced at 18,000 yuan (US$2,620) apiece, it’s surely not something you will buy on impulse.

    (Debra Li)