In The Kitchen

Roasting

The cooking time for most meat and poultry is based on the weight to be cooked. The standard metric units for weight are grams and kilograms (kg). A kilogram is 1,000 grams and is commonly shortened to kilos and abbreviated to kg. The below table gives the reccomended cooking times.

Fish

The cooking time for fish can be calculated by depth, as weighing them can be tricky.

• Heat the oven to 180°C, Gas 4.
• Lay the fish flat on a board and measure the depth in cm at the thickest part.
• Calculate 5 mins per cm + 10-15 minutes standing time after cooking (eg. whole salmon at 7 cm depth x 5 = 35 mins + standing time).

A quick recipe for fish: Brush lightly with oil, season and put lemon slices or fresh herb sprigs in the cavity. Wrap loosely in foil. Bake then stand and unwrap to serve.

Your existing kitchen equipment is probably suitable for use in cooking in metric. Most scales are either digital or dual metric/imperial. Digital scales ensure more accurate reading of small amounts (whether in metric or imperial). If using spring balance scales then choose a set with a large ‘face’ that goes in increments of 25 g

Baking

The beauty of metric units is they can go very small ( 5g) to much larger amounts (2 kg) without having to revert to awkward fractions (these fractions can also be difficult to read of you rely on reading glasses!).

A good metric recipe should take account of the units a product is sold in e.g. 125 g butter (half a 250 g pack), not 115 g, 500g flour (not 450 g) to minimise awkward left overs.

Cake tin sizes –
if you have old tins in your kitchen there is no need to discard them, simply measure with a metric ruler and write the size on the base in indelible ink. New cake tins are almost exclusively in metric sizes.

Here is an approximate guide to the most useful sizes
15 cm – round sandwich and flan tins (serves 4)
18 cm – round sandwich and flan tins (serves 6)
20 cm – round sandwich and flan tins (serves 6-8)
22 cm – round sandwich and flan tins (serves 8)
24/25 cm – round sandwich and flan tins (serves 10 - 12)

Square tins are one size bigger than round – an 20 cm square tin is the equivalent of 22 cm round

Loaf tins – small size, 500 g
Medium size 1 kg

To adapt a recipe to a larger or smaller size tin – add up the weight of the ingredients in grams, turn this into ml to give the volume then pour this amount of water into your chosen tin and increase or decrease the weight of ingredients accordingly.

Meat	1st 15 mins at	Reduce temp to	Roast mins/ kg	Internal meat temp
Beef-rare	250°C / Gas 8 or 9	190°C / Gas 5	25	50°C
Beef-medium	250°C / Gas 8 or 9	190°C / Gas 5	35	60°C
Beef-well done	250°C / Gas 8 or 9	190°C / Gas 5	45	70°C
Lamb-pink	250°C / Gas 8 or 9	200°C / Gas 6	35	60°C
Lamb-well done	250°C / Gas 8 or 9	200°C / Gas 6	45	70°C
Pork	250°C / Gas 8 or 9	180°C / Gas 4	70	75°C
Fish	180°C / Gas 4	180°C / Gas 4	5mins/cm at thickest part	flesh feels just firm

Jams

Use 1 litre cooked pulp to 1 kg sugar.
For low sugar/soft set jams use 750-800 g per litre of fruit pulp

Measuring Spoons

Technically these come in 5 ml/10 ml/ 15 ml and in some cases 20 ml

However, as in many metric countries the usage term is still used
e.g. teaspoons (5 ml), 10 ml (dessertspoons). tablespoons (15 or 20 ml)

Oven Temperatures

Heat Level	Degrees Celsius	Gas Mark
Very Cool	less than 100	slow
Very Cool	100 - 110	1/4
Very Cool	120 - 130	1/2
Cool	145	1
Cool	150	2
Warm	160 - 170	3
Moderate	180	4
Moderately Hot	190	5
Fairly Hot	200	6
Hot	220	7
Very Hot	230	8
very Hot	245	9