of-phrase with 'tablespoon'

Nice question that reflects years of my own vague irritation at cookery writers.

I believe that this issue arises because of there often being two aspects to recipes. There is the list or table of ingredients, and there is the method description.

The list is a version of an implied (or it may be explicit sometimes, depending on layout of the recipe) table in which there are two matched sublists, one of items, one of quantity.

1. Onions - 2
2. Stock - 500 ml
3. Beef - 250 gm
4. Salt - 1 teaspoon

... and so forth.

Being a table, there is no need for prepositions such as of.

In contrast, The method description is prose and needs normal grammatical constructions. This is where you expect to find the prepositions in constructs such as “whisk two eggs with 200 ml of olive oil and add one teaspoon of salt.” (Not my best recipe!)

However, those who write recipes get a bit sloppy in their writing and start to insert the forms appropriate to the lists into their prose. Hence a carefully critical reader such as you starts to wonder what is correct or wrong.

Each cookbook or on-line publisher of recipes follow their own styles. “Of” is usually left out in a list of ingredients, thus, 1 cup milk, 1 tsp salt, 1 Tb vanilla, 3 onions diced, and the like. It just gets in the way.

In a text description of the flavor contribution of an item the word of may occur.