Ratio

Formats and editions:
- In hardback.
- In paperback.

Publisher review:
When you know a culinary ratio, it’s not like knowing a single recipe, it’s instantly knowing a thousand.
Why spend time sorting through the millions of cookie recipes available in books, magazines, and on the Internet? Isn't it easier just to remember 1-2-3? That's the ratio of ingredients that always make a basic, delicious cookie dough: 1 part sugar, 2 parts fat, and 3 parts flour. From there, add anything you want – chocolate, lemon and orange zest, nuts, poppy seeds, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, almond extract, or peanut butter, to name a few favorite additions. Replace white sugar with brown for a darker, chewier cookie. Add baking powder and/or eggs for a lighter, airier texture.
Ratios are the starting point from which a thousand variations begin.
Ratios are the simple proportions of one ingredient to another. Biscuit dough is 3 : 1 : 2 – or 3 parts flour, 1 part fat, and 2 parts liquid. This ratio is the beginning of many variations, and because the biscuit takes sweet and savory flavors with equal grace, you can top it with whipped cream and strawberries or sausage gravy. Vinaigrette is 3 : 1, or 3 parts oil to 1 part vinegar, and is one of the most useful sauces imaginable, giving everything from grilled meats and fish to steamed vegetables or lettuces intense flavor.
Cooking with ratios will unchain you from recipes and set you free. With thirty-three ratios and suggestions for enticing variations, Ratio is the truth of cooking: basic preparations that teach us how the fundamental ingredients of the kitchen – water, flour, butter and oils, milk and cream, and eggs – work. Change the ratio and Bread dough becomes Pasta dough, Cakes become Muffins become Popovers become Crepes.
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 this innovative, straightforward book that cuts to the core of cooking. Ratio provides one of the greatest kitchen lessons there is – and it makes the cooking easier and more satisfying than ever.

Index:
- The ratios.
- What is a ratio and why is it important?
- The all-important scale.
- Using this book.
- Introduction. The truth of cooking.
- Doughs and batters.
- Stocks and the amazing things they allow you to do.
- Farçir: sausage, mousseline, and other meat-related ratios.
- Fat-based sauces.
- The custard continuum.
- Epilogue. The ultimate meaning and usefulness of ratios.

About the author:
Michael Ruhlman is recognized as one of the great translators of the craft and art of the chef for both home cooks and culinary professionals. He writes regularly about food at ruhlman.com, as well as for The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and food journals. He has appeared as a judge on Iron Chef America, The Next Iron Chef, and PBS's Cooking Under Fire. He is author or co-author of numerous books:
- The making of a chef.
- The French Laundry cookbook.
- The soul of a chef.
- A return to cooking.
- Bouchon.
- Charcuterie.
- The reach of a chef.
- The elements of cooking.
- Ratio.
- Ad hoc at home.
- Ruhlman's twenty.
He and his wife, the photographer Donna Turner Ruhlman, live in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, with their daughter and son.