Robot chef can now chew and taste its dishes

The robot uses a probe to "taste" the food as it cooks

Researchers from the University of Cambridge trained their robot chef to be able to chew and taste the food it is cooking.

This means the robots can tell how much salt is in a dish at different stages of the human chewing process.

Grzegorz Sochacki, an Engineer at Cambridge said: "It's important that they are able to 'taste' what they're cooking."

The university collaborated with Beko, a kitchen appliances manufacturer.

The robot chef was created back in 2015 by Russian mathematician, computer scientist and entrepreneur Mark Oleynik.

Currently robots that can cook are only able to capture one level of taste.

However when we chew our food, we notice a change in texture and taste.

Dr Arsen Abdulali, also from the Department of Engineering said: "The process of chewing also provides continuous feedback to our brains.

"So we wanted to replicate a more realistic process of chewing and tasting in a robotic system, which should result in a tastier end product."

This was what was on the menu for the robot to taste!

This robot has already been trained to make omelettes based on human tasters' feedback.

After been updated with a probe that is used to 'taste,' the robot tried scrambled eggs and tomatoes seasoned nine different ways at three different stages of the chewing process.

The researchers found that this 'taste as you go' approach improved the robot's ability to quickly and accurately assess how much seasoning to add to a dish.

This accuracy could help with automated food preparation, making sure each finished product is the same in looks and taste.

Automated food systems can be used to help run kitchens at restaurants, hotels, or hospitals.

This shows the food at different stages of mixing