Ratio
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"Cooking, like so many creative endeavors, is defined by relationships. For instance, knowing exactly how much flour to put into a loaf of bread isn't nearly as useful as understanding the relationship between the flour and the water, or fat, or salt . That relationship is defined by a 'ratio, ' and having a ratio in hand is like having a secret decoder ring that frees you from the tyranny of recipes. Professional cooks and bakers guard ratios passionately so it wouldn't surprise me a bit if Michael Ruhlman is forced into hiding like a modern-day Prometheus, who in handing us mortals a power better suited to the gods, has changed the balance of kitchen power forever. I for one am grateful. I suspect you will be too." -- Alton Brown, author of "I'm Just Here for the Food"
--This text refers to the
Paperback
edition.
Product Description
As the culinary world fills up with overly complicated recipes and never-ending ingredient lists, Michael Ruhlman blasts through the surplus of information and delivers an innovative and straightforward book that cuts to the core of cooking. Instead of spending time wading through the millions of recipes available in books, magazines, and on the Internet, just remember 1-2-3. That's the ratio for cookie dough: 1 part sugar, 2 parts fat, and 3 parts flour. Biscuit dough is 3:2:1 or 3 parts flour, 2 parts liquid, 1 part fat. Change the ratio and bread dough becomes pasta dough, cake becomes muffins, and popovers become crepes. Vinaigrette is 3 parts oil to 1 part vinegar, and is one of the most useful sauces imaginable, giving everything from grilled meat to lettuces intense flavor. Distilling dishes to their essence-using a few simple techniques and even fewer ingredients-is what every professional or home cook needs to know. Broken down into thirty-three ratios and suggestions for enticing variations, preparing food goes from craft to art...all without a recipe. Providing one of the greatest kitchen lessons there is, Ratio gives readers a starting point from which a thousand variations begin-making cooking easier and more satisfying than ever.
--This text refers to the
Paperback
edition.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Ratio is a great book but it contains an error,
By
This review is from: Ratio: The Simple Codes Behind the Craft of Everyday Cooking (Paperback)
The concept of using ratios in cooking is extremely useful and I very much welcome it. As engineer with cooking as hobby it is logical and I wonder why it wasn't made public in UK before now.There is however an error in Michael Ruhlman's excellent book which frequently trips people up and could lead to a serious distortion of the ratio and thus failures in recipes. On page 91 the statement "A pint's a pound the world around" is incorrect. In the UK and in some of the countries in the common wealth that still use the pound, the statement "a pint of water weighs a pound and a quarter" is true because there are 20 fluid ounces in a pint, unlike the US where a pint contains only 16 ounces. This also means that a UK or Imperial Gallon is larger than the US Gallon by 20%.
17 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Great concept, muddled execution,
By Duncan Markham "thegastronomersbookshelf.com" (Melbourne, VIC Australia) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Ratio: The Simple Codes Behind the Craft of Everyday Cooking (Hardcover)
This highly anticipated book could have been ground breaking in showing people how to cook using ratios of ingredients (e.g. one part sugar to two parts fat to three parts flour = a basic cookie dough) rather than slavishly following recipes that always seem to be different from each other. Traditionally, cooks used this sort of knowledge all the time but most home cooks nowadays seem to have lost it.So, the concept for this book was great. Ruhlman's engaging text and delicious recipes, his tips and advice, all make parts of Ratio valuable. He clearly explains the strength of concentrating on relationships between ingredients rather than individual quantities, and doesn't pretend that understanding ratios makes you a good cook -- he reminds the reader that making good food comes down to experience and execution. Unfortunately, the good bits are overshadowed by text that I felt was confused, inconsistent and highly repetitive. There was a lack of clarity in explanation and that stood out as a failure in such a conceptually important work. There are no diagrams beyond a sort of "wheel" of ratios. Most ratios in the book are based on weight, but Ruhlman is inconsistent about this as the book progresses, and in the recipes. Through it all, I longed for the knowledge of cooks experienced in the old ways of cooking by ratio/proportion/quantity, rather than a chef's spreadsheet (the inspiration for Ruhlman's book). I've written a much longer review on my own site, so I'll just round off here by saying Ratio is a great concept but I feel it is best suited for readers seeking inspiration rather than clarity or careful explanation.
2.0 out of 5 stars
Too dry a read,
By
This review is from: Ratio: The Simple Codes Behind the Craft of Everyday Cooking (Paperback)
I like the idea behind this book and I trust the author, but there's something about it that just makes it too dull to pick up again. The writing is dense and not entertaining or appetising. I'm not a food porn addict - I don't need pretty pictures and easy to digest paragraphs, but I need something a little easier to navigate.
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