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Ruhlman's Twenty: The Ideas And Techniques That Will Make You A Better Cook (2011)

by Michael Ruhlman(Favorite Author)

4.19 of 5 Votes: 3

ISBN

0811876438 (ISBN13: 9780811876438)

languge

English

genre

Food & Cookbooks

publisher

Chronicle Books

review 1: This one is hard to gauge. It's freaking enormous, and it's part cookbook, part textbook. But I read most of the text, and despite his didacticism (is that a word?), he's amusing and informative. A lot of the recipes look great. I've already tried the Hollandaise sauce, and liked it - plus, who knew you could emulsify with a mixer instead of biceps and a whisk? AWESOME. I'm excited to try a lot of these recipes!
review 2: I decided to wait until I'd made several things from this book before I reviewed it. Currently I've made lemon confit (though it'll be 10 weeks before I can use it!), pizza dough, bacon-and-egg pizza, roasted shallots, and coq au vin.The pizza was brilliant, even though I managed to overcook it a bit at all possible stages. I am hankering to m... moreake it again. Both the pizza itself and the crust are dead easy, and taste wonderful! The crust is crisp, but not at all like a cracker; I have some in the fridge to make tomorrow, because as written, it only takes 3 hours- that's great! but doesn't leave time for the dough to ferment. It'll be interesting to taste how it is after fermenting for a couple of days in the fridge. For the pizza as a whole, the balance of cheese, bacon, and eggs is just perfect and very crave-able.The lemon confit was really easy to make, too. I can't use it yet because it requires 3 months curing, but it worked well. I've done 2 jars: one is conventional lemons, and the other is Meyer lemons. The recipe calls for 2 pounds of salt and one of sugar for 5 lemons; that seems excessive, since mine are going well with 9-10 lemons and 3/8ths the amount of sugar, salt and water.The roasted shallots are like candy; I could eat them all day, but heroically refrained because I need some for the coq au vin, which we just ate and which is rich and flavorful and amazing. It did take me closer to 2 hours than 1 hour to make it, but it's so worth it; it's the best coq au vin I've ever made.But- I didn't buy this just for the recipes. I really love Ruhlman's thoughtful approach to cooking, and the text parts are what I am valuing as I'm reading this. It is not a book of recipes; it's a considered approach about HOW to cook. If you like Cook's Illustrated, Ruhlman is definitely someone to read.My only quibble: more and more, ambitious cookbooks seem to be vying for coffee-table-book status: they are getting huge and heavy and unwieldy. This makes them harder to read- and this one needs to be read- and harder to cook from. I do not care for this trend.Still- I'm about a third of the way through reading it (albeit with difficulty), and have learned a lot from the text- and the recipes I've tried have been spot-on, and I want to make them all again soon. less

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