Ratio- The Simple Codes Behind The Craft Of Everyday Cooking written by Michael Ruhlman

I wanted to share with everyone today a book that has been instrumental in changing the way I think about cooking and has allowed me the courtesy of hardly ever having to reach for a recipe to use as reference. This book re-iterates the fact that all cooking is defined by relationships. For instance; bread is broken down as 5 parts flour, 3 parts water. (plus yeast and salt) Now I know there is a lot more that goes into bread but this ratio is the essence of bread. If you have had any experience making bread and have the common grasp on how long it should be kneaded you can pull a decent loaf off on the fly by grabbing a scale and your ingredients, never once having to Google a recipe or dust off a Martha Stewart cookbook. The most important thing is that you are using 5 parts of flour and 3 parts of water. You do need salt for seasoning and yeast for its leavening but the amounts used are rather forgiving unless you have a super specific texture of bread you are trying to achieve. Now that you know this you can make roasted garlic bread, cinnamon raisin bread, or any other type of bread you can brainstorm.

So, I found this information mind blowing and it left me wondering why I didn’t think of this. Let’s look at other doughs.
Pasta Dough = 3 parts flour : 2 parts water
Pie Dough = 3 parts flour : 2 parts fat : 1 part water
Biscuit Dough = 3 parts flour : 1 part fat : 2 parts liquid
Cookie Dough = 1 part sugar : 2 parts fat : 3 parts flour

The list goes on and on but I think you get the jest of it. If you have a basic understanding of the techniques involved you only need to know these relationships to pull off any variation of these items. The book is broken up into:
Doughs and Batters
Stocks and Thickening Agents
Farcir Sausage, Mousseline, and Other Meat-Related Ratios
Fat Based Sauces
Custards

For those of you out there looking to enhance their cooking prowess I highly recommend this book. As stated in the last sentence of the book: "Ratios Liberate You-when you know the ratio and some basic techniques, then you can really start to cook." Once you allow yourself to get into this mind set you will start to look at everything in terms of ratios and really examine while the work. For me it has definitely made me a better cook and expanded my abilities to create on the fly. When shit hits the fan and everyone starts to freak out that something was overlooked and something needs to happen quickly, this is when you stop everyone and calmly say, it's going to be alright, it's easy to make, I don't even need a recipe. Go home a hero. Free your mind for the low cost of $27.00