内容来源：https://www.theverge.com/tech/1029489/nyt-cooking-ai-assistant-review

内容总结：

《纽约时报》烹饪版块近日推出AI助手功能，帮助用户调整食谱、替换食材和调整份量。科技记者詹妮弗·帕蒂森·图希在实际使用后撰文分享了体验。

图希表示，她每个工作日傍晚都面临“晚饭做什么”的困扰，而AI工具已成为她的得力帮手。在测试中，她通过该助手将一道生姜鸡肉米饭食谱中的鸡腿肉替换为鸡柳，用青豆代替瑞士甜菜，并调整了烹饪步骤。助手在几秒内生成了新版本食谱，所有改动均高亮标注，用户可随时切换回原版。最终成品获得家人认可。

在烘焙测试中，她让助手将肉桂卷邦特蛋糕食谱改为纸杯蛋糕版本，助手将烹饪时间从三小时缩短至50分钟，并在减半食谱时合理地将五个鸡蛋调整为三个。不过她也遇到问题：在原始食谱和AI修改版之间切换时，助手曾给出错误黄油用量，可能导致蛋糕口感干硬。她建议用户在使用完毕后删除修改版本以避免混淆。

图希还测试了食材替代建议功能，例如询问能否用泰国罗勒代替香菜、用青柠皮屑替代马蜂橙叶等，助手均给出合理回答并说明风味差异。对于明显不合理的请求，如用碎牛肉替代手指饼干做甜点，助手也能明确拒绝。

与亚马逊Alexa Plus语音助手的对比测试中，图希发现Alexa虽能提供类似建议，但无法在屏幕上显示修改后的食谱，且在引导操作时出现混乱。她认为《纽约时报》烹饪助手更可靠，但希望增加语音控制功能。

图希总结认为，该AI助手适合作为“副厨”而非“主厨”，用户仍需自行核对用量和烹饪时间。对于注重原版食谱的用户，可以忽略该功能。对她而言，这一工具确实让日常工作日晚餐变得更加轻松。

中文翻译：

每个工作日晚上7点左右，我都会站在冰箱前，试图决定晚餐做什么，免得丈夫抱怨：“又是鸡肉？”是的，我应该多做 meal plan，但我没有，所以这就是我的现状。一场每晚的战斗，而鸡肉通常是赢家。

《纽约时报》烹饪的AI助手拯救了我的工作日鸡肉，但差点毁了我的蛋糕

我在食材替换、食谱缩放和缺失的Bundt烤盘上测试了这款新的AI驱动工具。

最近，我在这场战斗中的最佳武器是AI。从厨房台面上Echo智能显示屏里的Alexa Plus，到冰箱上的Samsung Food应用，甚至还有一款AI驱动的烹饪机器人，AI已经成为我的首选副厨——尽管是一个我需要密切留意的副厨。它帮我替换食材、生成创意、在我搞砸时补救，是的，甚至让我做得更好。所以当我常用的食谱应用《纽约时报》烹饪推出AI助手时，我很感兴趣。

许多人对这个新工具持怀疑态度，包括一些《纽约时报》烹饪用户和食谱纯粹主义者，我理解原因。《纽约时报》烹饪我最喜欢的一点是，它汇集了来自数十个可靠来源的数千份食谱——比如《纽约时报》档案、餐厅、食谱书和美食专栏作家——而且都有真人测试过。（我试过一些纯AI生成的食谱，效果不好。）

这项服务（我已经付费订阅了好几年）的另一个很棒的功能是读者评论。在这里，我经常能找到烹饪难题的解决方案，比如用什么替代马蜂橙叶——《纽约时报》烹饪的食谱里总有一种我手头没有的略显小资的食材。

然而，在工作日晚上7点翻阅数百条评论找答案并不总是实际。这就是我发现《纽约时报》烹饪助手有用的地方。除其他功能外，它接受了用户评论的训练，在我几天测试中，它为新材料提供了实用的替代方案和可靠的烹饪指导。它也不会无条件同意离谱的请求（我试过！）。和所有AI工具一样，它并不完美——它差点让我在蛋糕里只放了一半所需的黄油——但作为一个工具，它很有用，感觉是AI的一个扎实应用。重要的是，它不会改变现有食谱；它保持原样，为你创建一个新的。

它不会改变现有食谱；它保持原样，为你创建一个新的

助手出现在应用食谱页面的一个小文本框中，提示语是：“自定义此食谱……”从这里，你输入一个问题来按需调整。这可以简单到“这个食材可以用什么替代？”也可以复杂到“将这个食谱缩放为供七人食用，并做成纯素和无麸质。”《纽约时报》还表示，该功能可以建议烹饪设备的替代品并转换计量单位；后者选项已经在应用中存在了几年。

上周五晚上，我没有茫然地盯着冰箱，而是打开《纽约时报》烹饪应用食谱盒中的鸡肉文件夹，找到了一道我一直想试的一锅姜味鸡肉米饭。只是我没有鸡腿肉，也没有一半的食材。

我本可以自己搞定这些步骤，但能得到验证——确认我的修改不会让菜变得难吃——感觉很好。

我在食谱页面的助手框中输入了我的困境：“我有鸡柳、新鲜姜、大蒜、米饭、高汤、青柠，但没有甜菜叶、香菜或葱。我有四季豆和红洋葱。”几秒钟内，它就创建了一个新版本的食谱，新标题为：一锅姜味四季豆鸡肉米饭。它建议鸡柳缩短煎制时间，红洋葱与鸡肉一起烹饪，四季豆在最后八分钟放在米饭上蒸而不是甜菜叶。每一处更改都在新食谱的“你的版本”标签下高亮显示，我可以随时翻回原版。

我注意到它没有调整香菜缺失的问题，说香菜是可选的。所以我问能否用泰国罗勒代替，我正好有，它同意了，并高亮说明了这会如何改变风味。虽然很多步骤我本可以自己搞定，也许借助谷歌，但能得到验证确认我的修改不会让菜变得难吃，而且不用滑出应用，这很好。《纽约时报》烹饪的编辑们说，它已经被训练为不遵从会难吃的请求。

最终的菜品——烹饪时间与原版相同——非常美味，得到了我丈夫的认可（他午饭刚吃了剩菜）。它与Yasmin Fahr写的原食谱非常不同，我能理解纯粹主义者的观点。但改写后的食谱使用起来方便得多，做出的菜也比我自己从评论区搜集替代方案瞎凑的要好，我通常就是这么做的，成功率参差不齐。

我经常做饭，所以对自己手头有什么食材可能适合想做的菜有一定判断。但如果你完全不知道用什么替代，助手也能帮忙。比如，我在做泰式红咖喱时问可以用什么代替马蜂橙叶。它回答说磨碎的青柠皮可以，但“它缺少新鲜马蜂橙叶那种更深层的花香和草本香气。”（看？小资。）

周末，我又尝试了几次替换，问在焦糖苹果荷兰宝贝中 half-and-half 能否代替奶油，或者在烤大比目鱼中Castelvetrano橄榄和烟熏红椒粉能否代替卡拉马塔橄榄和辣椒。在任何菜中替换香料都是大胆的举动，因为真的可能毁掉风味。

我还让应用将荷兰宝贝食谱的公制重量转换为美制计量，它无缝完成了。然后我抛出了几个刁钻问题。用新鲜卡宴辣椒配大比目鱼怎么样？它警告我，用卡宴代替辣椒“会带来显著的尖锐辣度”。我能在这个 trifle 中用碎牛肉代替手指饼干吗（致敬《老友记》里的Rachel Green）？“碎牛肉不能用来代替手指饼干，也不能用于这款甜点 trifle 的任何部分。”判断正确。

做饭时，我将《纽约时报》烹饪助手与Alexa Plus进行了对比，后者是亚马逊的生成式AI语音助手，我经常通过厨房里的Echo Show 11智能显示屏用它帮我做饭。有趣的是，它在鸡肉米饭的食材替换上给出了与烹饪助手相同的指导，但烹饪时间略有不同。Alexa通过两家公司的合作从《纽约时报》应用中获取一些食谱。

然而，Alexa无法在其屏幕上显示修改后的食谱；它只能在我看到原版食谱时告诉我更改内容。当我让它带我过一遍时，它搞混了并即兴发挥，让我把鸡肉切成一口大小的块——而修改后的食谱里并没有这一步。总的来说，我觉得用烹饪应用更可靠，虽然更麻烦。如果能用语音控制来导航应用就好了，就像我在智能显示屏上用Alexa那样，而不是用沾满大蒜的手指。

是时候来更大的挑战了：烘焙。

我通常不是烘焙者。我的蛋糕烤出来是扁的，饼干不会碎。甚至几年前我测试的智能搅拌机也救不了我。我也很少有合适的设备。所以我拿了《纽约时报》烹饪编辑Genevieve Ko（她宣布了AI功能）的肉桂卷Bundt蛋糕食谱，让它把食谱改成玛芬。（谁有Bundt蛋糕烤盘啊？！）

它将食谱的烹饪时间从三小时改为50分钟，并将面糊分到两个12孔玛芬模具中。但那样会做24个玛芬，对我来说太多了。所以我让它将食谱减半以做12个玛芬。这带来了一些聪明的选择，比如将五个鸡蛋减半为三个，而不是没用的两个半。

为了科学，我还买了一个Bundt烤盘来做原版。两个都做得很好，但当我在应用中在原食谱和AI版本之间切换时，事情变得有点麻烦。你无法单独保存新食谱，这在我做原版时造成了混淆。我没有用沾满黏糊的手指往回翻食谱，而是问助手需要多少黄油（用语音输入），它给了我修改版食谱的6汤匙，而不是原版的四分之三杯，却没有告诉我是哪个版本。你可以删除你的版本，我建议这样做以避免这类问题——6汤匙黄油做出来的蛋糕会很干。

如果你在开始做《纽约时报》食谱之前已经读完了所有评论，那你可能会发现这个工具以更精简的方式提供了类似的体验。对于日常问题——鸡肉部位不对、没有香菜、或者没有Bundt烤盘——它确实很有帮助，省了我跑一趟商店。它也足够聪明，知道在trifle里放碎牛肉时要说不。

和我在厨房用过的所有AI工具一样，《纽约时报》烹饪AI助手作为副厨表现不错，但它不是主厨——我仍然觉得需要复核用量和烹饪时间，并与原食谱交叉比对，确保它没有做什么离谱的事。

如果你是纯粹主义者，你完全可以忽略助手。虽然你无法关闭聊天框，但很容易滑过去。我确实认为它会让我更频繁地使用这个应用，因为当我没有马蜂橙叶或合适部位的肉时，我不再需要那么担心了。对我来说，站在冰箱前拿着鸡柳毫无计划的时候，它是我每夜烹饪流程中有用的补充。

图片由Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge拍摄

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英文来源：

Around 7PM each weeknight, I find myself standing in front of the fridge, trying to decide on something for dinner that won’t make my husband complain, “Chicken again?” Yes, I should meal plan more, but I don’t, so this is where I’m at. A nightly battle in which the chicken usually wins.
NYT Cooking’s AI assistant saved my weeknight chicken, but almost ruined my cake
I tested the new AI-powered tool on ingredient swaps, recipe scaling, and a missing Bundt pan.
Recently, my best weapon in this fight has been AI. Between Alexa Plus in the Echo smart display on my kitchen counter, the Samsung Food app on my fridge, and even an AI-powered cooking robot, AI has become my go-to sous chef — albeit one I need to keep a close eye on. It’s helped me swap ingredients, generate ideas, fix things when I mess up, and yes, even cook better. So I was intrigued when my go-to recipe app, NYT Cooking, introduced an AI assistant.
Many, including some NYT Cooking users and recipe purists, are skeptical of this new tool (available to subscribers on iOS only at launch), and I get why. One of the things I like most about NYT Cooking is that it features thousands of recipes from dozens of reputable sources — such as the New York Times archives, restaurants, cookbooks, and food columnists — and real people have tested them. (I’ve tried some purely AI-generated recipes and they were not good).
Another great feature of the service, which I’ve been paying for for several years, is the reader comments. Here, I’ve often found solutions to cooking dilemmas, like what to substitute for makrut lime leaves — there’s always one slightly bougie ingredient in an NYT Cooking recipe that I don’t have on hand.
However, reading through hundreds of comments to find answers at 7PM on a weeknight isn’t always practical. And this is where I’ve found the NYT Cooking assistant helpful. Among other things, it was trained on user comments, and in my few days testing it, it provided practical substitutions and solid cooking guidance for the new ingredients. It also won’t unquestionably agree to crazy requests (I tried!). As with all AI tools, it’s not perfect — it almost made me put half the required butter in my cake — but as a tool, it is useful and feels like a solid application of AI. Importantly, it doesn’t change the existing recipe; it leaves it as is and creates a new one for you.
It doesn’t change the existing recipe; it leaves it as is and creates a new one for you
The assistant appears in the app in a small text box on the recipe page with a prompt: “Customize this recipe…” From here, you type in a question to adapt it to your needs. This can be as simple as “What can I substitute for this ingredient?” to “Scale this recipe to feed seven people, and make it vegan and gluten-free.” The New York Times has also said the feature can suggest substitutions for cooking equipment and convert measurements; the latter option has been in the app for a couple of years.
Last Friday night, instead of staring aimlessly into the fridge, I turned to the Chicken folder in my NYT Cooking app Recipe Box and found a One-Pot Chicken and Rice With Ginger I’d been wanting to try. Only I didn’t have chicken thighs or half the ingredients.
I could have figured these steps myself, but it was nice to have validation that my modifications wouldn’t make the dish taste terrible.
I typed my dilemma into the assistant box on the recipe page: “I have chicken tenders, fresh ginger, garlic, rice, broth, limes, but no chard or cilantro or scallions. I do have green beans and red onions.” Within seconds, it created a new version of the recipe, with a new title: One-Pot Chicken and Rice With Ginger and Green Beans. It suggested a shorter browning time for the tenders, cooking the red onion alongside the chicken, and steaming the green beans on top of the rice for the last eight minutes instead of the chard. Every change was highlighted in the new recipe under a Your Version tab, and I could flip back to the original at any point.
I noticed it hadn’t adjusted for the lack of cilantro, saying it was optional. So I asked if I could use Thai basil, which I happen to have, and it agreed, highlighting how it would change the flavor. While I could have figured out a lot of these steps myself, maybe with the help of Google, it was nice to have validation that my modifications wouldn’t make the dish taste terrible and nice not to have to swipe out of the app. The NYT Cooking editors say it’s been trained not to comply with requests that will taste bad.
The resulting dish — which took the same amount of time to cook as the original — was delicious and got my husband’s seal of approval (he just had the leftovers for lunch). It was very different from the recipe Yasmin Fahr wrote, and I can see the purists’ point. But the rewritten recipe was much easier to use and produced a better dish than winging it with my own subs gleaned from the comments section, which I usually do with varying degrees of success.
I cook regularly, so I had a sense of what ingredients I had on hand that might work for the dish I wanted to make. But the assistant can also help if you have no idea what to use as a substitute. For example, I was cooking a Thai red curry and asked what I could use instead of makrut lime leaf. It replied, saying that grated lime zest would work, but “it misses the deeper floral, herbal aroma” of fresh limes. (See? Bougie.)
Over the weekend, I tried several more swaps, asking whether half-and-half would work instead of cream in a caramel apple Dutch baby, or if Castelvetrano olives and smoked paprika could stand in for kalamata and chile pepper in a roasted halibut dish. Swapping spices is always a bold move in any dish, as it can really ruin the flavor.
I also had the app convert the Dutch baby recipe’s metric weights to US measurements, which it did seamlessly. Then I threw in some curveballs. How about using fresh cayenne peppers with the halibut? It warned me that substituting cayenne for chile “brings significant, sharp heat.” Could I swap ladyfingers for minced beef in this trifle (à la Rachel Green in Friends)? “Minced beef cannot be used in place of the ladyfingers or anywhere in this sweet dessert trifle.” Good call.
While I was cooking, I compared the NYT Cooking assistant with Alexa Plus, Amazon’s generative-AI voice assistant I regularly use to help me cook via the Echo Show 11 smart display in my kitchen. Interestingly, it offered the same guidance as the Cooking assistant on substitutions for the chicken and rice dish, but with slightly different cooking times. Alexa pulls some recipes from the NYT app through a partnership between the companies.
However, Alexa couldn’t show the modified recipe on its screen; it could only tell me the changes while showing the original. When I asked it to walk me through them, it got confused and improvised, telling me to cut the chicken into bite-sized pieces — which wasn’t in the modified recipe. Overall, I found using the Cooking app more reliable, although messier. It would be great to be able to use voice control to navigate the app, as I can with Alexa on my smart display, rather than using my garlicky fingers.
Time for a bigger challenge: baking.
I am typically not a baker. My cakes come out flat, and my cookies don’t crumble. Even the smart mixer I tested a few years ago couldn’t save me. I also rarely have the right equipment. So I took Cinnamon Roll Bundt Cake, a recipe by NYT Cooking editor Genevieve Ko (who announced the AI feature), and asked it to turn it into muffins. (Who has a Bundt cake pan?!)
It modified the recipe’s cooking time from three hours to 50 minutes and split the batter across two 12-muffin tins. But that was going to make 24 muffins, way too many for me. So I asked it to halve the recipe to get 12 muffins. This led to some smart choices, like halving five eggs to three instead of an unhelpful two and a half.
For science, I bought a Bundt pan to make the original version too. Both turned out great, but things got a bit sticky when I swapped between the original recipe and the AI version in the app. You can’t save your new recipe separately, which caused confusion when I was cooking the original. Instead of scrolling back through the recipe with sticky fingers, I asked the assistant how much butter I needed (using voice typing), and it gave me the modified recipe’s 6 tablespoons rather than the original’s three-quarter cup, without telling me which version it was using. You can delete your version, which I would advise doing to avoid issues like this — 6 tablespoons of butter would have made for a dry cake.
If you already read all the comments before starting a New York Times recipe, then you will probably find this tool offers a similar experience in a more streamlined way. For everyday problems — wrong cut of chicken, no cilantro, or no Bundt cake pan — it was genuinely helpful and saved me a trip to the store. It was also smart enough to know when to say no to minced beef in a trifle.
As with every AI tool I’ve used in the kitchen, the NYT Cooking AI assistant works well as a sous chef, but it’s not the head chef — I still felt the need to double-check amounts and cooking times and cross-reference them with the original to make sure it hadn’t done something outlandish.
If you’re a purist, you can just ignore the assistant. While you can’t turn off the chat box, it’s easy to scroll past. I do think it will make me use the app more often, since I no longer need to worry as much when I don’t have makrut lime leaves on hand or the right cut of meat. For me, standing in front of the fridge with chicken tenders and no plan, it’s been a useful addition to my nightly cooking routine.
Photos by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge
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