{"id":8702,"date":"2018-05-31T08:27:34","date_gmt":"2018-05-31T07:27:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.mentor.com\/colinwalls\/?p=8702"},"modified":"2026-03-26T16:54:36","modified_gmt":"2026-03-26T20:54:36","slug":"cooking-with-cups","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/2018\/05\/31\/cooking-with-cups\/","title":{"rendered":"Cooking with cups"},"content":{"rendered":"

I enjoy cooking. So the plan to invite some friends for dinner, as they are moving house and are, hence, in total disarray, was fine with me. They are vegetarians. Although I am a meat eater, I do not demand meat with every meal, so I am happy to accommodate other people\u2019s preferences. I looked up my file of recipes [in Evernote], where I had tagged all the vegi ones and decided to make “Spring Paella with Peas, Asparagus and Manchego Cheese\u201d. I have a goal to try at least one new recipe each month this year and this is the second one in May!<\/p>\n

Perusing the recipe, I notice that it is American [I do not necessarily record the source of my filed recipes]. This is OK, so long as I can identify\/get the ingredients, but it brings other challenges \u2026<\/p>\n

Here is part of the ingredients list for my recipe:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

All the items are quite straightforward, but I am very challenged by the measurements. Like all American recipes, everything is in cups! In Europe, we tend to measure liquids by volume [which mostly equates to a weight] and solid goods by weight. The only exception is very small quantities, where we also use teaspoon or tablespoon for both.<\/p>\n

I know that a cup is approximately 250ml, so the wine and stock are easy – 62.5ml and 375ml respectively. But what about the rice and the peas? I pour the stuff into my measure up the 250ml mark. Should I stop there? If I lightly tap the container, the ingredient settles a bit and I need to add some more to get to 250ml. When do I stop? If I am weighing stuff, 250g is 250g – there is no room for uncertainty.<\/p>\n

If those were not hard enough, what about the cheese? Cheese is sold by weight everywhere. You either ask for a weight or the package tells you the weight that it contains. So, what do you buy to get half a cup? My first thought was that this is 125ml and milliliters are the same as cubic centimeters, so I just need a 125cc block of cheese – say 3cm x 4cm x 10.5cm. But that is not right, as shredded [I would say \u201cgrated\u201d] cheese is less dense, so takes up more space. In the end, I just grated all the Manchego that I had to hand and it looked like at least half a cup.<\/p>\n

The good news is that the dish turned out very well and was all consumed, with the guests having second helpings.<\/p>\n

Any American cooks who can give me advice? Please comment or contact me via email<\/a> or social media. Bon App\u00e9tit, as we say in England.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I enjoy cooking. So the plan to invite some friends for dinner, as they are moving house and are, hence,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":71677,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spanish_translation":"","french_translation":"","german_translation":"","italian_translation":"","polish_translation":"","japanese_translation":"","chinese_translation":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[302],"industry":[],"product":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-8702","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-off-topic"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8702","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/71677"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8702"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8702\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10692,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8702\/revisions\/10692"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8702"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8702"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8702"},{"taxonomy":"industry","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/industry?post=8702"},{"taxonomy":"product","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product?post=8702"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=8702"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}