Ratios and My Love of Michael Ruhlman

Michael Ruhlman is one of my food world heroes. He won my heart when he subjected himself to the intense life of the Culinary Arts Institute (the top chef school in the country) just so he could write a book about it (The Making of a Chef). He had no plans to become a star chef and make millions. I’m not even sure if he had a book deal before he enrolled. He paid his way through the CIA because he loved to cook and wanted to learn more about cooking for himself and his family.
He then went on to write a bunch more amazing books about chefs and food, including Soul of a Chef, a fast paced, non-fiction page turner about three chefs and how they strive for greatness in the food they prepare. He’s written the prose for celebrity chef cookbooks which contain recipes that would scare off most casual cooks, but he’s also written books that make seemingly impossible to prepare at home techniques, like charcuterie, approachable to anyone who is willing to invest the time to try.
I just got his latest book, Ratio, from the library. It’s all about the ratios that make certain foods what we expect them to be. For example, bread is made with a ratio of 5 parts flour to 3 parts water by weight. Yes, you need to add yeast and a bit of salt, and you’ll have to knead it and let it rise, but as long as the ratio between flour and water is 5:3, you’ll get bread.
For a cook with just a bit of experience, the idea behind ratios is freeing. You don’t need to look up a recipe for every bread you want to make and you don’t need to be tied to specific batch sizes. If you want to make a few rolls for dinner you can weigh out what seems like enough flour and then add the correct ratio of water plus a bit of yeast and salt. Throw in some chopped olives and rosemary towards the end of the kneading process and you’ll have fresh baked bread with just the flavors you were craving.
Ruhlman doesn’t just explain the ratio for bread, he has ratios for every type of dough and batter you can think of plus all the little extra information you’ll need to make the ratio work.
Who knew that you could free yourself from cookbooks by just remembering 1-2-3 or 3-2-1 (the first is for cookie dough (1 part sugar, 2 parts fat, 3 parts flour) and the second is for pie crust (3 parts flour, 2 parts fat, 1 part liquid))? Could it really be that simple?
By the time I got to the second chapter of the book and was reading about pasta dough I had to give it a try. Out came my kitchen scale, a bowl, some flour and a couple of eggs. The dough was ready in a jiffy and rolled out through my pasta machine like a dream. It made amazing ravioli (and because everything was weighed into one bowl, there were hardly any dishes!).
I was beginning to feel untethered from my cookbooks but before I got all crazy and swore off them for good (an idea I’d never even considered when it came to baking), I thought I should try a baking ratio to make sure the pasta wasn’t a fluke.
Does anyone need an excuse to make cookies? I don’t, so out came my scale and mixer. I looked through my cabinets to see what ingredients sounded like they’d enhance my basic 1-2-3 cookie. I immediately got stuck on the idea of pistachios, finely chopped and coating the outside of the cookie. Then I began searching for something I could add to the dough that would go well with pistachios. Orange rind sounded like a good pairing. Ruhlman had gotten my creative juices flowing and I wasn’t concerned whether pistachios and orange zest went together in someone else’s cookies, they were going together in mine.
I put the mixing bowl on the scale and added 2 ounces of sugar and 4 ounces of butter. The weight of the butter was the deciding factor in how big a batch I would make. This was an experiment and I didn’t want to be stuck with dozens of not-so-great cookies. A stick of butter weighs 4 ounces so I went from there.
Once the butter and sugar were creamed together, I grated some orange rind into the bowl and mixed it in. I placed the bowl back on the scale and added 6 ounces of flour (and a splash of cream that needed to be used up). I mixed it all up until it held together and rolled it into 1” balls. I rolled the balls in the chopped pistachios and flattened them onto a baking sheet. After 12 minutes in a 375F oven, they looked just like cookies. And they were delicious; so delicious that I had to physically restrain myself from eating them all.
The dough of the 1-2-3 cookie was a bit dry. Unlike a drop cookie recipe that leans more towards a batter consistency, it required some work to compact it into balls. The results were tender and flaky and not at all chewy.
Ruhlman first gives the basics of how to put the key ingredients together then goes on to tell us how to make all kinds of additions and changes to the ratio and what the results will be. I felt confident that I could turn my shortbread-like cookies into chewy chocolate chip cookies with ease (but managed to control myself from actually making another batch of the tempting little devils).
He also makes it clear what the connections are between the different doughs and batters so you can begin to see the link between each one and how they relate to each other. As he says: “It’s all one thing” and by understanding that you are free to experiment.
I am now officially hooked on ratios and I haven’t even finished reading the book. There are still ratios for custards, stocks, sauces, and sausages to explore. I feel like I’ve been let in on a special secret and it’s liberating and exciting and I can’t wait to get back in my kitchen and cook. Thanks Michael.