Ratio
and over one million other books are available for Amazon Kindle .
Learn more
| ||||||||||||||||||||
 Trade In this Item for up to £0.25
Get an extra £5 when you trade in books worth £10 or more until June 30, 2012. Trade in Ratio: The Simple Codes Behind the Craft of Everyday Cooking for an Amazon.co.uk gift card of up to £0.25, which you can then spend on millions of items across the site. Trade-in values may vary (terms apply). Find more products eligible for trade-in.
|
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
More About the Author
Product Description
Review
"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"
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.
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Browse and search another edition of this book.
Browse and search another edition of this book.
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
12 of 12 people found the following review helpful
Format: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%.
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
Format: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.
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.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
The book is great, and explains things well, but be warned: it is written solely for the US market. If you can't get your head around pounds, don't buy your eggs in ounces, can't measure an inch, have an oven that is set in degrees Celsius and are not sure what a cup measurement is, then you may find it hard work to follow.
I will say it does base all the recipes (and formulas) around basic ingredients that will be available anywhere in Europe, so you won't be scratching your head over food product trade names.
I will say it does base all the recipes (and formulas) around basic ingredients that will be available anywhere in Europe, so you won't be scratching your head over food product trade names.
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Most Recent Customer Reviews
Too dry a read
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. Read more
Published 3 months ago by Coco
What your mother never told you
Strangely enough I took a course in cooking in Jr. High and have a book case if various related books from the beginning of writing to today, yet none of the books and literature... Read more
Published 18 months ago by bernie
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
|
|
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
