what i’ve learned from mr. epstein:

• secret ingredient in pasta: seeded jalapeno and/or italian red pepper flakes
• watery sauce will not grip the pasta
• keep a small bowl of cool water nearby; as pasta cooks you can pick one out w/ slotted spoon and drop into the bowl and taste w/o burning mouth
• pasta is the main ingredient; not the sauce
• if serving pasta later, reserve the boiled pasta water and ladle some into the pasta as you reheat to loosen pasta
• putting mozzarella cheese on basil and not hot pasta will prevent melting and stringiness
• strattu: fragrant tomato concentrate (infinitely more so than tomato paste)
• find a quality butcher who trims his own prime beef and grinds the scraps for hamburger
• he strains freshly beaten eggs and scrambles them over a bain-marie instead of open flame (we did this w/o the straining…m used less butter than i do when i scramble them on open flame so, of course, they weren’t as good)
• potato chips: russet potatoes sliced almost paper-thin on a mandoline, soaked briefly in cold water to eliminate starch so they don’t stick together, drained, spun, and thoroughly dried in the fridge, three inches of canola or peanut oil heated to 350; the drier the potatoes, the faster they will brown and the less the oil will bubble when you add the potatoes, adjust flame to compensate for temp drop when you add each handful/batch (we just watched cook’s illustrated do the same thing with 1/4″ fries; their recipes were about 90% the same); epstein recommends chips and matchsticks for more crunch and less sog
• oil floats on water so unless you make an emulsion, or greens are bone dry, add oil to the greens first, vinegar second

bain-marie scrambled eggs a la jason epstein and m