Customer Reviews

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

5 star:		(35)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

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

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.

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."

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)

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.

I like his work, but I expected the photo descriptions for more of the tricky stuff. I was surprised to not see browned butter step by step along with other techniques you would want to see. I found his descriptions to be on the vague side, and clearer time frames for various cooking and baking steps are important and missing here.

Ruhlman seems to write cook manifestos about cooking. I'll admit, I've not gone near his other books, but Twenty, Ratio, and The Elements Of Cooking are all amazing because they talk so eloquently about the how and why of cooking without bogging down in misleading details.

Edward Espe Brown wrote about the problem misleading details in his most recent cookbook. The real problem is that cookbook editors require impossible things, such as an exact time it will take something to cook. Exact times don't exist, though, and much of the basic knowledge on cooking isn't basic knowledge anymore. In the old days people learned how to cook and much of the basics could be omitted. In a modern kitchen, those basics are gone. Few people it seem know how to tell when something is going right, or going wrong.

Ruhlman's previous work, Ratio, set a high bar. I'm not sure this one quite reached the bar, but it comes close. The book is about twenty things about cooking that are important. And it comes with recipes!

Probably the most notable thing in this book is the section on salt. I'm an anti-salt person, myself. Around the time I was 30, a doctor pointed out that a dislike of seafood and an aversion to salt could mean an iodine allergy. I already knew I had an iodine allergy, but it suddenly clicked that if I got non-iodized salt that maybe it wouldn't make food taste like death. But thirty years of life without salt are hard to put behind me. To me food that has been salted just tastes like salt, and salt tastes like death (even without the iodine). But I found the descriptions of what pasta water should taste like to be eye-opening. And salty water for cooking vegetables needs to be different still. Slowly but surely I'm learning to like salt (which I'm doing mostly for the benefit of other people who eat my food because they complain bitterly if the salty pall of death doesn't infest every corner of the meal).

I'm unhappy with the paper they used to print this. It's a Chronicle book, and I'm seldom happy with the feel of that companies books.

But as far as content, this book is great, and I'm certain it will be an important and long lasting voice in culinary art.

I am big fan of author and haven't tried all the recipes yet. I am running into a problem with some of the recipes; the directions seem incomplete.
I wish he was clearer sometimes. I do love his book "Ratio" and think he is fantastic but would not recommend this book to novices.
He does get points for his creative presentation though.

I'm a fairly experienced cook, and wanted to improve my skills. Additionally, my daughter, who's 20, is learning to cook. I bought both of us a copy, and have found it to be a virtual cooking class for nearly every aspect of cuisine. For me, there was some review of skills and ingredients that I was familier with, but also there was a lot of new information and techniques that really set my existing skills off. As for my daughter, she is sending me photos of homemade chocolate cake, pan roasted pork loin, really good mac and cheese, and roasted cauliflower. I've enjoyed not only my new skills and recipes, but also seeing her skills blossom. This is without a doubt, the very best cookbook in my collection.

Who should read this book? Anybody who cooks will enjoy Ruhlman's informative and upbeat writing style. The recipes are first rate, so we older cooks will find some very good things to cook a broad range of dishes, but anyone will learn some really practical advice about the entire range of "cooking".

This is an ideal gift for a person who enjoys food and wants to learn to cook. I enjoyed the way the book is organized (in some sense, by techniques), but also by key food groups. Recipes are simple, clear, and achievable.

If you can't afford to go to cooking school but want to enhance your knowledge in the kitchen, by all means try this book. Illustrations are beautiful and useful. If you know someone who thinks they might want to become a great cook, I can't imagine a better book to start from.

There is a superb balance between explaining what we do in the kitchen, and explaining WHY we do it. The book is never dry or pedantic, but there is great knowledge here. My wife and I can't wait to explore this book together in the kitchen.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.