| I've been very remiss with my book reading recently, but last weekend I found time to read Ratio - the latest work by Michael Ruhlman. And what an amazing experience that turned out to be. Regular readers will know that I've never been very keen on recipes. As we develop as professional chefs, we learn cooking techniques and the skills of execution and apply these (and our palates) to the task in hand, without much reference to the written word. We come to see recipes as being for amateurs. |
 | Pastry, however, tends to be viewed as an exception. As anyone who's ever baked anything will attest, even the smallest error in ingredient quantities can lead to disaster. Cookbooks and dish specs provide us with complex recipes, detailing the ingredients down to the nearest gram and leaving the poor cook or chef to scale everything up or down according to crockery size. Michael Ruhlman, in contrast, introduces us to the science of cooking with ratios. In so doing, he unchains us from the shackles of detailed recipes by explaining exactly how the basic elements of the patissier's trade - water, flour, butter, oil, milk, cream and eggs - actually work together when combined. "Change the ratio and bread dough becomes pasta dough, cakes become muffins become popovers become crepes", he explains with blinding simplicity. |
| The thought process advocated by Michael Ruhlman could and should be emancipating home cooks everywhere from the tiresome and boring exercise of recipe-following. Ruhlman explains that if you begin to understand the basic guidelines for following a ratio not a recipe, you're effectively opening up an infinite amount of new possibilities in your home kitchen. Think of it as algebra. Cake = butter + sugar creamed together + eggs added one by one + flour. Or... Cake = eggs + sugar foamed together + flour folded in gently + melted butter. Both of these methods use the same ingredients in the same quantities - but they produce different results. And what's the difference? The second method produces a lighter cake. Why? Because foaming the eggs and sugar together incorporates much more air into the preparation than creaming the butter and sugar together. In other words, understanding the basic scientific principles of what happens to ingredients depending on how we combine them, and in what order, can allow us to think for ourselves instead of being dictated to by a recipe. |
| This type of thinking really attracts me. Using one's own common sense first and foremost, then seeking guidance if necessary, is a liberating philosophy. One of the very first things I was taught at college was the ratio of basic vinaigrette - three parts oil to one part vinegar. Any other ingredients I chose to add were just an added bonus. I could take away the chopped chives and Dijon mustard and it would still be a vinaigrette. But if I remove the oil, it would certainly cease to be one. If I wanted to add lime juice for flavour, I'd probably reduce the amount of vinegar slightly, thereby breaking the 3:1 rule. Does that really matter? Of course not - it's called the simple application of common sense. Would I still have a vinaigrette at the end of the day? Of course. |  |
| Ruhlman goes on to explain the finer details of stock-making, thickening with rouxs, the art of the tricky but sublime mousseline, brines and similar pickling concoctions and hot and cold emulsified sauces including his own all-time favourite Béarnaise. He concludes by tackling everything you could possibly need to know about "the custard continuum", from the ratios required for the humble crème anglaise to even simpler ratios that result in the triumph of caramelisation that is butterscotch sauce. |
 | What I enjoyed most about reading Ratio was the fact that, although I've read The Big Fat Duck Cookbook, A Day at El Bulli, Alinea and other recent iconic œuvres of the kitchen arts, I've never before felt that I was drawing as much inspiration and sprouting as many new ideas as while I navigated the pages of this book. I can only describe Ratio as an essential culinary bible. And that's coming from a self-confessed modernist, radical, technology-dependent boy. I read books first and foremost in order to learn from the ideas of others, but I also read for the inspiration that helps me come up with my own ideas. Michael Ruhlman's Ratio certainly gave me that kick-start. My brain has hardly stopped whirring ever since I closed the covers of this incredible book. |
| I often find that, based on one sentence I've just read, my mind can wander off for hours into a faraway land of brainstorming creativity. When that happens I pull my mobile phone out and start jotting down notes for as long as I can keep my concentration. It's not intricate spherifications and imaginative, post-modern elaborations that get my creative juices flowing. It's simple, straightforward basic open-ended concepts that allow my own brain to do the leg work. And believe me, my brain can run marathons when I let it. Ratio is full of such concepts, it's a book that is fuel for the creative mind in the purest form. If you think of the creative process as a tree, the best place to start from is the trunk, with a multiplicity branches heading outwards in all directions. That's exactly where Ratio is - at the central power station from which all ideas can grow. |
| Here's a perfect example of what I'm getting at. What is mayonnaise? Answer: an emulsion of fat and water - traditionally vegetable or olive oil and the water in egg yolks. The lecithin present in the yolks (and in the optional mustard) helps to stabilise the emulsion and the extra water content provided by vinegar or lemon juice enables more oil to be added in order to achieve the correct consistency. But forget about the technical details for a moment - let's just think fat and water. Now open your mind. Which other common culinary preparations are simply a combination of fat and water? What happens to cream when we whip it? What could be used as the fat content instead of oil in mayonnaise? And what could be used instead of vinegar or lemon juice as the water content? |  |
| How could the preparation be flavoured? Could we infuse the oil beforehand, use an aromatic oil or employ a combination of oils? What could be used to provide acidity if vinegar or lemon juice aren't utilised as providers of water content? What's a Hollandaise, if not a warm cousin of mayonnaise? All at once a whole new avenue of possibilities has opened up. Fats are generally liquid when warm, so that means loads of alternative fat-content possibilities that weren't possible in a cold mayonnaise. Rendered bacon fat whisked into warm, foamy yolks. Goose fat leftover from Sunday's roast. Foie fat... This book truly opened my mind to a new way of thinking - and one that I hope to continue following in the coming years as I develop as a chef. Ratio should be read by everyone from experienced professional chefs to rank amateur home cooks, because different people will take different ideas and principles from it to suit their own requirements. Moreover, it's as gripping as a Stephen King novel. I read it cover to cover in a few days and I could probably tackle it again right now and discover a world of ideas I'd overlooked the first time round. Mr Ruhlman - congratulations on a truly inspirational read. Thanks to Kristian Madsen for the oil and water photo and to Leonardo da Vinci for The Vitruvian Man. |
