"Michael Ruhlman" news and stories

Michael Ruhlman (cookbook author and TV personality) writes for HuffPost Food today:

"...I say watch Sandra Lee if you like her, make her recipes, and make them again, because eventually, you are going to want more, and you are going to want better."

Continuing reading on HuffPost Food.

Each Thursday, we round up a selection of scrumptious links from our friends over at YumSugar. Here's what they've got cooking this week:

A sausage ricotta arugula pizza will cure hump-day doldrums.

Poll: Who doesn't like cooking with animal fat? Bacon, anyone?

Iron Chef Michael Symon cooks breakfast at Williams-Sonoma to promote his new cookbook, co-authored by Michael Ruhlman.

Transform Thanksgiving leftovers -- odds are you still have some -- into a Kentucky Hot Brown sandwich.

Test your knowledge of Texas' beloved Dr Pepper.

Once the food coma of Thanksgiving passes, it's time to consider Christmas foods.

Stuff stockings with these essential food-inspired gift ideas.

Before I started making stocks and soups, I falsely assumed that tasty broths were just naturally clear. Then I got my mom to show me how to make her post-Thanksgiving turkey broth. The taste was there, but so was the fat, and that less tasty looking gelatinous goo that came from chilling it in the fridge.

But what about consomme? Michael Ruhlman's latest post details how to turn that homemade stock into a delightfully clear consomme. I plan to test this once Thanksgiving hits, if I can pull myself out of turkey hangover and find the drive.

If you have experience with the art of consomme, is this how you do it? What are your techniques?

Have you ever wondered about why it's important to salt your food at various stages of the cooking process? Or wished for someone to talk you through a good technique for poaching an egg with humor and understanding? If so, Michael Ruhlman's 2007 book, The Elements of Cooking should be given a place in your kitchen as this book has the answers and guidance you seek.

This is a book that walks you through basics, gives you insights into the ways in which chefs think and offers lots of little things you can do to make your home cooking more successful and delicious. It is the best-written and most instructive book I've clapped eyes on in a long time. If my educational texts in college had been this engrossing, I probably would have stayed a student for ever.

In addition to offering lots of immensely helpful tips, there are also a handful of recipes scattered throughout the book, mostly tucked in the A to Z section. They might not look like recipes as you're used to seeing, as they come in narrative form, but they are there, in the form of instructions on how to macerate berries or make lemon confit. I can't say enough good things about this book, I just recommend that if you have any interest in learning more about cooking and the food you eat, you should check it out.

Source

If you've already decided that foie gras isn't for you, then Michael Ruhlman's recent post on megnut probably isn't going to change your mind. If, however, you're undecided about the stuff, or (gasp) a fan, then by all means this is worth reading. Even with phrases like "pluck out any large dark veins," or "spread out the lobes," Ruhlman makes the fatted liver sound damn tasty, especially with scrambled eggs or soaked in milk and then poached. He also makes the point that, unlike most other high-end products, the foie gras available to the average consumer is likely of the same grade as the stuff available to most chefs because there are only a few suppliers in the U.S. Note that Tony Bourdain gives Ruhlman the atta-boy in the lengthy and worth-reading series of comments that follow the post.