La receta pide cien gramos de azúcar, pero yo pongo un poco menos.

The recipe calls for one hundred grams of sugar, but I add a little less.

Breakdown of La receta pide cien gramos de azúcar, pero yo pongo un poco menos.

• yo: I
• un: a
• pero: but
• de: of

Questions & Answers about La receta pide cien gramos de azúcar, pero yo pongo un poco menos.

Why does la receta use pide? Recipes do not literally “ask,” so what does pedir mean here?

In Spanish, pedir can mean more than just to ask for in the literal sense. Here, la receta pide... means:

• the recipe calls for...
• the recipe requires...

So La receta pide cien gramos de azúcar is a very natural way to say The recipe calls for one hundred grams of sugar.

This is a common use of pedir with things like:

• La receta pide harina integral. = The recipe calls for wholemeal flour.
• El trabajo pide mucha paciencia. = The job requires a lot of patience.

Why is it cien gramos and not ciento gramos?

Use cien before a noun to mean one hundred.

So:

• cien gramos = one hundred grams
• cien euros = one hundred euros

Use ciento when the number continues:

• ciento uno = 101
• ciento veinte = 120
• ciento cincuenta gramos = 150 grams

So in this sentence, cien gramos is correct because the number is exactly 100 and comes directly before the noun.

Why is there in ?