Ruhlman's Twenty: 20 Techniques 100 Recipes A Cook's Manifesto [Hardcover]

Michael Ruhlman (Author), Donna Turner Ruhlman (Photographer)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 14, 2011

Rare is the cookbook that redefines how we cook. And rare is the author who can do so with the ease and expertise of acclaimed writer and culinary authority Michael Ruhlman. Twenty distills Ruhlman's decades of cooking, writing, and working with the world's greatest chefs into twenty essential ideas from ingredients to processes to attitude that are guaranteed to make every cook more accomplished. Whether cooking a multi-course meal, the juiciest roast chicken, or just some really good scrambled eggs, Ruhlman reveals how a cook's success boils down to the same twenty concepts. With the illuminating expertise that has made him one of the most esteemed food journalists, Ruhlman explains the hows and whys of each concept and reinforces those discoveries through 100 recipes for everything from soups to desserts, all detailed in over 300 photographs. Cooks of all levels will revel in Ruhlman's game-changing Twenty.

Editorial Reviews

Review

James Beard Foundation 2012 Book Awards winner, General Cooking category

"A naturally curious and intelligent cook, Michael has amassed a vast amount of culinary knowledge through his many years being around and writing about food. In his newest book Ruhlman's Twenty he has distilled everything down to the most essential 20 techniques that will help build solid skills and a positive outlook in the kitchen. It is a great resource."
-Thomas Keller, chef/owner of The French Laundry

"I'm not sure if Michael Ruhlman is a great writer who cooks or a great cook who writes, but either way he always manages to make my favorite thing: good sense. With Ruhlman's Twenty he makes sense of just about anything and everything that can happen in a kitchen by boiling it all down to twenty elemental concepts, stunningly presented in concise and useful clarity."
-Alton Brown, host of Good Eats and author of I'm Just Here for the Food

"There is something smart, useful and important to learn from each remarkable chapter of Ruhlman's Twenty. Whether you've cooked all your life or you've just come into the kitchen, you're bound to be changed by this book."
-Dorie Greenspan, author of Around My French Table

International Association of Culinary Professionals' 2012 Cookbook Awards winner, Food and Beverage Reference/Technical category

About the Author

Michael Ruhlman is the author of Ratio, The Soul of a Chef, The Making of a Chef, Charcuterie, and, with, Thomas Keller, The French Laundry Cookbook. He lives in Cleveland Heights, Ohio.


Photographer Donna Turner Ruhlman lives in Cleveland Heights, Ohio.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 368 pages
• Publisher: Chronicle Books (September 14, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0811876438
• ISBN-13: 978-0811876438
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 1.4 x 9.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (114 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #12,228 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #44 in Books > Cookbooks, Food & Wine > Culinary Arts & Techniques

More About the Author

Michael Ruhlman is the author of twelve books, including the bestselling "The Making of a Chef" and "The French Laundry Cookbook." He lives in Cleveland with his wife, daughter, and son and is a frequent contributor to The New York Times and Gourmet.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

258 of 268 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Another winner from Ruhlman! September 7, 2011

By beckygardens TOP 50 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

Length: 4:07 Mins

When I saw Ruhlman's Twenty being offered through my book club last month, I had to wonder if I really wanted this book. In my house over 1000 cookbooks reside, taking up space, filling bookcases, spilling out everywhere, so I am getting really picky about what I bring in the house. could this book be something I wanted or needed? I am considered a good cook, I've read Pepin's La Technique and La Methode, would Ruhlman's Twenty actually bring something new to the table? Ha!

I'm such a huge fan of Ratio I decided to give Twenty a chance. It's a big beautiful cookbook and the first thing I noticed was the pictures! Beautiful, in focus, of the food, and the techniques being described. For example, there is a recipe for candied orange peel, the recipe is on one page, and on the facing page are pictures showing the four stages and how it should look at each stage. For someone like me who prefers visual learning this is amazingly helpful. Making mayo? there are two pages showing the emulsifying steps using a hand whisk or an immersion blender ( a trick I actually found in Ratio, and went from broken mayonnaise to beautiful lush mayo just using his technique and recipe)

At first I felt a little cheated, The first chapter is "thinking" Really? thinking as a technique? But then I read what he had to say. In 30 years of cooking I cannot tell you how many times I've boiled over milk while getting it to boil for a recipe, and never once did it occur to me that I had just changed the liquid ratio by how much I lost in the boil over- and then blamed the recipe for it not turning out right.... Maybe it's intuitive to other people, but that really drove home why he had a chapter on thinking, and I got over the eye rolling first impulse I had "be one with the sauce, visualize the roasted chicken" and realized this is good stuff.

A lot of the recipes will become staples, and while he gives great techniques nothing here is especially frou frou, this is not only a book that can teach, but it's one that after you learn the technique the recipes are delicious and great for cooking from again and again.

There is a lot to learn, it's really not all been said or done before, or maybe it's just how Ruhlman presents the information, so clear and easy to understand.. The candied orange peel was delicious! As was the roasted cauliflower with brown butter, Halibut poached in olive oil, and the to die for French onion soup. I can't wait to make more recipes and I have pictures and well laid out recipes to help me learn something new, even after 30 years of cooking Read more ›

135 of 150 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The essential guide for good cooks who want to be better cooks September 28, 2011

By Ellen Malloy

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

I am a big fan of -- his books and his blog. Time and again, I have seminal moments of my life as a cook that involve his work.

So it is no surprise that I stayed up late one night to read TWENTY and then immediately started in on the recipes. The book is nothing short of brilliant.

And let me tell you why you should pay attention to my review.

I know the fundamentals of cooking. I went to culinary school and graduated at the top of my class.

And I know recipes. I actually wrote recipes for chefs for 14 years in my work as a restaurant publicist for 14 years. Most chefs, you see, can't write a recipe so I would have to get the ideas from them and then write up the actual process. Once, I got a "recipe" from a rather famous chef that was written on a bevnap. It said, "take veal, make ragu." I had to translate that into something for the NYT. I did, I sent it in, and the Food Editor wrote back to tell me that the recipe "from the chef" was the best recipe he made all year.

So, I have some cooking cred.

And yet, I am learning from TWENTY. A lot.

I am not sure if this is an awesome book for absolute beginners. Though there is enough instruction in there that a smart person who pays attention could, in fact, use this as a 101 book. But I do know it is *essential* for anyone who thinks they are a competent cook and is confident in their kitchen abilities.

Buy it. Now.

32 of 35 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars the perfect book if you cook September 26, 2011

By C. Young

Format:Hardcover

sorry for the rhyme, but honestly, if you are serious about creating very good food in your home then this is the book that will catapult you forward. ruhlman's style of writing is a pleasure to read and you will learn an incredible amount about how to cook food properly to make delicious meals. just read it cover to cover. this book is a wonder. truly. buy it now. (i'd trade 20 of my top favorite cook books for this one)

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A "Must Have" for the serious home cook September 23, 2011

By J. Turner

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

This book is in one word "Excellent". I previously purchased Ratio which I use for many things as a reference and it's an excellent one, but Twenty is so much more. Between the excellent tips, techniques, and recipe ideas (and I say idea in that you're encourage to make every recipe your own) and the amazing photography by his wife Donna Turner Ruhlman which is not only artistically enticing but well thought out to give you the feel that you don't have just a book you have a kitchen companion. I've been reading a few pages every night, using post-it flags to mark what I wanted to try, but gave it up quickly because I was just putting one on almost every page. I've already made the "Perfect Roasted Chicken" which indeed, to me, was just awesome... finally crispy skin all over the chicken! I'm sure I'll have more things to say as I try more of the concepts, but if you're even considering buying this book, do it. It will definitely be my Christmas gift to family and friends.

286 of 380 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars Sloppy thinking makes for a confusing book October 16, 2011

By Janet A. Zimmerman

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

It's ironic that the first chapter of Ruhlman's Twenty is titled "Think"; he obviously didn't do nearly enough thinking while writing this book. His premise, that there are only a handful of cooking techniques one needs to know, is sound, if unoriginal (James Peterson said the same thing in his 2007 book "Cooking"). But right away he starts to go wrong - most of his "techniques" are not techniques at all. He seems to understand that on one level, yet with an illogical flurry worthy of Humpty Dumpty in "Through the Looking Glass," he conflates actual technique (poaching) with ingredients (eggs) and even complex preparations (soup).

It's not that I think acid, salt, eggs and water are unimportant in cooking; Ruhlman is right in putting them front and center. But when he insists on calling ingredients and recipes "techniques" he creates unnecessary confusion - both in his writing and in the structure of the book as a whole.

Take eggs, for instance. If he treated them as an ingredient, then the egg section would have such recipes as poached eggs, scrambled eggs, deviled eggs, and perhaps angel food cake (which relies on whipped egg whites for its structure). Instead, because he can't figure out the difference between ingredients and techniques, the egg chapter contains scrambled eggs, but poached eggs are in "Poach"; deviled eggs are in "Chill" and angel food cake makes an appearance in "Sugar." Trying to guess where any particular type of recipe will end up a dizzying exercise in futility. Meatloaf is in "Water" because it's cooked in a water bath, but while his cheesecake is also cooked in a water bath, that recipe appears in "Eggs." A recipe for grapefruit granite shows up in "Chill" but lemon-lime sorbet is in "Sugar."

Confused writing is one thing.... But Ruhlman is also sometimes flat out wrong. In "Water," for instance, he stresses over and over again that water always boils at 212F/100C. Anyone living in Denver, Salt Lake City or Peru can tell you this is false, as can anyone who's ever cooked with a pressure cooker. Also in Water, he gushes over the capacity of water to dissolve flavor molecules, but in his enthusiasm, he goes on to say that "the same thing doesn't happen with oil, or with any other liquid." Actually, yes it does; oil and alcohol both dissolve taste molecules. In the salt chapter, he says on one page that 40 grams of salt in a liter of water gives you a 1-percent solution (it doesn't) and yet on the next page he says that 50 grams in a liter gives you a 5-percent brine (it does).

On the positive side, the photos are great, as far as they go. But why have a photo of salting a chicken, which I think most people can figure out, and not have photos of trussing a chicken (which he doesn't even bother to describe) or boning out a chicken breast (which he describes, but not well)?

Overall, this is a book that with more care could have been very useful. But as he wrote it, it's frustrating and sloppy. Ruhlman would have done well to heed his own advice: "Pay attention." Read more ›