Yes–in all stir frying–if the heat is not high enough, you have a devil of a time to get the result not to taste oily. I can imagine that would be even harder with a rich meat like lamb. Luckily, I have a flat-bottomed cast iron wok from China that works perfectly on a flat topped American stove. I can get it very, very hot and it retains its heat–this has improved my stir frying immeasurably. It is quite amazing.

Another thing that I have come to realize is that one can make a better tasting sauce by using the “less is more” principle–usually I ascribe to the “more is more” theory of cooking, but I have found that as I have gone deeper into my research and experiments with Chinese cooking, that most of the great sauces are built on a principle of restraint–not enthusiastic abundance. There are exceptions, of course, but I have found that the more I pare a recipe down, the better it comes out tasting.

I am told by my brother-in-law who is at Cal Tech that the Chinese food in LA is amazing. He has a huge list of restaurants he wants to take me to when we visit next summer–I would be honored to meet you and your wife at one of them, if possible. And if you can add to his list–I am sure he would be most grateful.

Corn in China–most theorize that corn has been in China since the Portuguese traders came in the sixteenth century, but there are some Chinese scholars who say it came earlier. It is possible that Arab traders navigated the Atlantic earlier than the Europeans did, and brought corn from South America to Africa, and then it travelled east to China.

At any rate–corn is there, and though it is unexpected, it is eaten often, from what I hear. I had not heard of cornmeal used yet, but stir fried fresh corn is quite common.

And here I thought -I- had been innovative, cutting corn kernals off the cob twenty years ago and stir frying them. (They are amazingly good–better than corn on the cob, even! That is saying a lot coming from a hillbilly like myself.)

Still, it is your cooking so there is a certain level of forgivenes

I was actually thinking specifically of you when I wrote that phrase in.

I have a question for you, though, are there different grades of Shaoxing wine? Because the one my Chinese ex-husband (did you know that I had been married to a Chinese? I forget…) used to get had a preservative in it that I didn’t like, but it was also really very cheap, and so I had a habit of using sake instead, which I don’t think would work in this dish.