WHAT IS GOOD - food apps

What's 'appening in the world of food apps? From restaurant reviews to virtual toast, if you can eat it, there's an app for it. Lauren Bravo rounds up some of the best iPhone apps.

Teach Me Sushi

Anyone who's ever tried to make their own sushi (and spent an hour picking rice out of the carpet afterwards) will know it isn't always easy. Step in Teach Me Sushi, the iPhone and iPad app that does exactly what it says on the rolling mat. With step-by-step guides to making all your sushi favourites, and videos taking you from the basics to advanced seaweed skills, you'll be a maki master before you know it.

£2.99

The Perfect Egg Timer

Which came first – the egg or the egg-timer app? Ok, in this case we know the answer. But you might wonder how we ever had one without the other, when you try The Perfect Egg Timer app. It's an app that takes its art seriously, allowing you to adjust the settings for egg diameter, temperature and even altitude (fancy breakfast up a mountain?) as well as your personal yolk preference for runny versus hard. All in all, an egg-cellent download.

£1.19

River Cottage Every Day

Featuring 31 spring recipes from Hugh and the gang, this tasty app helps you eat seasonally, with a diary telling you what's available when, and a local food directory telling you where to buy it. There's also the opportunity to share your own recipes and recommendations with the community of users, and find answers to your foodie dilemmas, as well as three extra packs to buy for summer, autumn and winter. Yes, with this app, you really can have River Cottage Every Day (as opposed to the programme, which was only on once a week).

£1.79

Urbanspoon

One of the first apps to put eating on the map (literally), Urbanspoon is a faithful pocket tour guide for the hungry city goer. Shake it and it will randomly generate a restaurant for you to try, or search by your location for reviews of every nearby eatery worth visiting. What's more, it's free, so you can afford dessert.

Free

Simply Good Fish

Peter Sidwell cooked his way around a national beauty spot in Lakes on a Plate, and now he's turned his attention to the fish in your dish. Beautifully shot and wonderfully simple to use, Simply Good Fish gives you 19 of Peter's easy peasy recipes – and just to make it a tad easy peasier, there's also adjustable portion sizes, a shopping list function, how-to video for each one, and the opportunity to email Mr Sidwell personally with your queries. How's that for service?

£1.19

Steak Master

For everyone who's ever had a guest get squeamish about blood, or liken their dinner to chewing on a shoe, Steak Master takes the trouble out of perfectly timing your steaks. You can choose your cooking method, pick your end result by picture, and adjust to the thickness of your meat with a helpful on-screen ruler. The app then guides you through each stage until your steak is beautifully cooked – like your Mum, but less bossy.

£1.19

Levi Roots – Sunshine Food

This happy app from the Reggae Reggae master may not be able to bring the sun out, but it does pretty much everything else – including play reggae music for you to cook to. Levi allows you to tailor 60 of his Caribbean-inspired recipes to your needs, adjusting the serving size, making multiple dishes at once, timing your cooking and compiling a shopping list of all your ingredients. There's also a Lite version, with 11 recipes, for free. Never cooked Caribbean before? Don't worry, be appy.

£3.99 or free

Time to Roast

Just like comedy, the secret of a perfect Sunday roast is timing. To make sure your meal doesn't end up a family joke, put your meat in the hands of the Time to Roast app. With guides to beef, lamb, pork, chicken, duck, goose and turkey, the app takes you through every step of the process in idiot-proof directions, with timed alarms to keep your basting and boasting on track. And at only 59p, you'll have plenty left over for trimmings.

£0.59

Come Dine With Me

If only the contestants on the show were allowed to use this app, everything might run a little more smoothly. Ready to turn you into a dinner party pro, the Come Dine With Me app lets you organise your own dinner party, find recipes, draw up a shopping list, learn about wine and record photos of the evening. But by far the best feature has to be the 50 exclusive soundbites from the velvet-voiced king of sarcasm himself, narrator Dave Lamb - everybody's dream dinner party guest, surely?

£1.79

More Toast

"If you download only one virtual toaster for the iPhone…" proclaims the More Toast page in the App Store. Were you thinking of downloading a virtual toaster for your iPhone? No, us neither. But if ever there was an app to make you think you really might need a virtual toaster for your iPhone, this is it. Choose your bread product from a wide selection, adjust your degree of toasting, choose your topping, and virtually munch your way through piles and piles of fantasy toast.
That seductive toasty smell isn't included, sadly.

£0.59

Information from Channel4 website