Cooking in the UK

I think I may just print off this thread and stick it in my Betty Crocker cookbook! 

Maybe I'm just more casual about my results, but it seems that when I use my measuring cups & spoons bought in the UK to measure ingredients for a US recipe, the proportions must be about right because the final product is usually fine.  Most of the time I make stuff that's pretty forgiving or needs to be "eyeballed" anyway (like yeast breads where you work in flour until the texture is right, or banana bread where it doesn't matter much if it's a little bit heavy and moist). 

I'm the same as ManderW.  I just eyeball a lot of stuff and estimate and it all turns out totally fine.  Although I will confess I just bought my first scale last week!  I can't wait to try it out.

I have to say that the UK way of WEIGHING things seems to work so much better for me.  I use our scale for everything now, from rice to pasta to dry goods in baking.  I think it gives a more precise method of measurement and slightly more idiot-proof than my traditional way of pretending that the 1-cup measurer was 'level' with flour when it really wasn't .

Although I will confess I just bought my first scale last week!  I can't wait to try it out.

I have one with weights.  Let me tell ya there is loads of eyeballing going on now. 

Thanks so much for that, Kathleen! I don't eat red meat, so it wouldn't have occurred to me to include this info! Here are the pictures:

Thanks, Carolyn, for noticing that the link to the British cuts of beef diagram is dead! Here's an updated one:



And there's also some good info here on the BBC site about British beef cuts.

Butter measurements, for those that have scales:

http://www.ochef.com/837.htm [nofollow]

I printed it out and put next to my kitchen scale. 

Could this thread be stickied please?   

ETA: In cooking if possible? 

Thank you for this!! I was wondering about the stoves!!

My husband bought me this book when I moved over and it's been a godsend:



It's basically a book about cooking american food in England, and it has lots of helpful info.  There's lists of alternative food names, comparison charts for beef cuts and cream consistencies and a lot more.  They make a pocket guide, too, and it's awesome for taking to Sainsbury's with me.  Cannot say enough good things about this one!

It's been 8 months here and I've finally stopped trying to set the oven in F. 

Yes, I was briefly perplexed by "rocket" until I googled it and found out it was arugula.  It suddenly became much more mundane. lol

Can we make this a sticky topic and possibly move it to the Food section? I've spent ages looking for this thread in the past and couldn't find it.

http://www.foodsubs.com/

I've posted this link before, but it's reaaaaallllly useful.  I don't think it's updated much as cabbage has been the ingredient of every month since July 2007.

http://www.foodsubs.com/

I've posted this link before, but it's reaaaaallllly useful.  I don't think it's updated much as cabbage has been the ingredient of every month since July 2007.

Thanks for that! 

I've generally been amazed by how much better quality supermarket food is here in the UK than in the US.  One thing that puzzles me however is how difficult it is to find tofu and how expensive it is when I do find it.  Vegetarianism isn't rare here.  Why don't Brits eat tofu?