From treasured heritage recipes and Eid celebrations to everyday meals, Dilshad Parker has been putting 21-in-1 smart cooking appliance the TOKIT Omni Cook C2 to the test, and she’s impressed.

The food blogger and creator behind the highly successful platform Hungry for Halaal, a review and discovery hub for halaal-certified restaurants and eateries across South Africa, says her love of food naturally extends into her own kitchen. There, she experiments with new creations while honouring her Indian heritage.

“I started writing about what I create in my kitchen, about traditional recipes that we cook in my culture and in my family particularly. And that’s how I started sharing my recipes on my website as well. Pretty soon I was doing a weekly newsletter where I was sharing the latest news about what’s happening in the halaal space, the restaurant space and so forth, as well as sharing recipes from my personal repertoire.”

So, is there room to combine “old school” recipes with the TOKIT Omni Cook C2’s cutting-edge technology? According to Dilshad, absolutely.

“The TOKIT I use in my normal cooking, like I would use a food processor. For instance, just the benefits are that I don’t even have to transfer from the food processor to the pot. In many cases, you know, you can process your food and cook it right in the TOKIT.”

The appliance offers 21 functions, including sautéing, fermenting, slow cooking, sous-vide, kneading, mincing, blending and steaming. It can even prepare up to three dishes at once, especially when used with its (separately available) double-layer steaming basket.

“For one particular heritage recipe, the saanna, I would normally use a big pot to steam these little rice cakes on the stove. But the TOKIT has a steamer accessory that I was able to use that just eliminated the bulky pot that you have to stand over on a stove. I used the steamer, which was a lot easier to use, and lighter and more compact. And it did the job equally well. There was no difference in the end result, which was for me just amazing. I won’t go back to the big pot ever again. The TOKIT steamer did the thing.”

Other standout features include a recently added frying option in its compact 2.2L stainless steel jug with a secure four-buckle lock system.

“I don’t know if people are aware that you can deep fry in the TOKIT. So, you’ve got the part where the blade normally sits, you can pop the blade out and you get a little plug attachment and you pop in the plug attachment in, and you can actually put oil in the jug. During Ramadaan, I fried samoosas in there. And that for me was like, wow, and quite a cool way to use the TOKIT.”

Even as a food content creator, Dilshad admits that deciding what to cook isn’t always easy. That’s where the TOKIT AI Recipe Generator Assistant comes in.

The Omni Cook C2 operates on the subscription-free CookNJoy platform, which offers access to more than 5,000 recipes, along with an AI-supported cooking assistant that acts as a personal sous chef. The platform is accessible via the machine’s touchscreen, a mobile app, and the TOKIT website. It is continuously updated with dishes from around the world, including South African favourites, and allows users to upload and save their own recipes.

“TOKIT’s AI function is great, because let’s say I don’t know what to cook, which is often I think most of us have that as a standard, almost daily dilemma. And you can actually do a search and say you’ve got maybe broccoli and sweet corn in the fridge. So, you can do an AI search and say ‘recipe for chicken bake with broccoli and sweet corn’ and it will formulate a recipe for you using the AI function. And that is very cool. Or if you need to make a hollandaise sauce, and you don’t quite know how to make a hollandaise sauce. You can go onto the TOKIT and you can search hollandaise sauce and it will find one in its library. And if it doesn’t already have it, it will create a recipe for you using its AI function.

“So you don’t have to trawl through recipe books or go online and trawl through 1000s of recipes online, you can have the AI do that thinking for you. And that for me is quite a convenient function. It saves time for someone like me, who takes long to make decisions about what I want.”

The AI Recipe Generator also supports recipe development, making it a valuable tool for both everyday cooks, chefs and food content creators like Dilshad looking to experiment. Users can upload their own methods via the app’s “Create Recipe” feature, tailoring the experience to their needs.

During the recent Eid celebrations, Dilshad found the TOKIT to be a major time-saver. Powered by an advanced motor with variable speeds (40–12,000 RPM), it delivers precise, high-temperature cooking of up to 180°C.

“There were one or two bakes that I used the TOKIT. I made something with ground peanuts and honey and chocolate. And I could grind the peanuts in the TOKIT. And the nice thing about the TOKIT is it’s a stronger processor than a typical food processor. This particular unit has a stronger motor, so you can do what you would do in a normal food processor in half the time.”

And when the cooking is done, cleanup is effortless thanks to the appliance’s auto-cleaning function.

“The worst thing about doing dough is having to clean your bowl afterwards, because even if it stands for a little bit, that dough hardens and the cleaning process becomes so much harder. So, the cleaning function is fantastic. I love it,” says Dilshad.

She’s already planning her next culinary experiment with the appliance: biryani.

“Somebody said to me that I should try making the biryani in the steamer. And that’s doable because you can cook your rice separately and then layer your food and steam it in the steamer because the steamer is quite big. And I’m still going to try that.”

In Dilshad’s kitchen, “old school” cooking and technology don’t compete, they work in harmony, showing how even the most time-honoured recipes can be reimagined through the smart, modern capabilities of the TOKIT Omni Cook C2.

The TOKIT Omni Cook C2 is distributed in Southern Africa by Swiss Diversitas Group. For more information, visit https://swissdiversitas.com/.