Kitchen wizards establish on-demand careers

A wok sizzles as garlic cloves and Chinese kale hit the hot oil while pork rib and lotus root soup bubbles on a stove. A whole fish, steamed and doused in soy sauce, sits on the kitchen counter next to a pile of spicy crawfish coated in chili oil.

Ding Yuqing, 23, juggles these dishes while navigating an unfamiliar kitchen. A college student in Wuhan, Hubei province, she is busy making a feast for a family who hired her to cook in their home.

Ding is part of a rising wave of Chinese youth embracing a new gig — "on-demand chef". Students, office workers and freelancers offer homemade meals to time-starved urbanites seeking healthier meals, comfort, and a taste of home.

The trend continues to rise on social media. Hashtags related to on-demand chefs have amassed over 1.45 billion views on Douyin and over 35 million on Xiaohongshu, or Red-Note. Notably, a viral story about a woman earning nearly 20,000 yuan ($2,784) a month cooking six meals a day rocketed to the top of Sina Weibo's trending list last month.

For Ding, it all began with a few food photos. Over winter break last year, she posted snapshots of her home-cooked dishes. To her surprise, requests started rolling in, asking: "Can you come cook for me?"

"At first, I was nervous cooking in someone else's kitchen," she says. "Now it's second nature."