Back in the early ‘80s, when I had just begun to write about cooking, I used to hang around in the kitchen of a man named Peter Chang. Chang ran a one-man-show of a Chinese restaurant in New Haven, Conn., and was kind and patient enough to teach me some of what he knew. Chang's efficiency was questionable: He'd start grinding the meat and shredding the cabbage when someone ordered dumplings, and often began a batch of stock only when the first patron asked for hot-and-sour soup. Meals at his restaurant frequently lasted three hours and more, time largely spent waiting. But the freshness of his ingredients (he shopped daily, of course), his sense of flavor (he tasted everything), and his ability to cook a la minute (prep was inconceivable to him) were all widely admired. Given his style, Chang was forced to keep things simple, and it never failed to surprise me how he got so much flavor out of so few ingredients. This dish, which he taught me about 25 years ago, is a perfect example. It is so simple that - in an odd change from standard operating procedure - I've made it slightly more complicated over the years. Chang's version went like this: Get some oil really hot in a wok. Dump in snow peas. Cook over maximum heat until they're bright green. Heat peanut and sesame oil, half and half; drizzle over the peas; finish with soy sauce. Voila. I add ginger and garlic for extra punch; maybe because the special flavor Chinese cooks call the “breath of the wok” comes only from super-high heat. No one with a typical home stove can approach that level. But I can't see those glossy peas, hear the sizzle of the hot oil on top, watch the soy sauce slide down onto the plate, and eat these babies, piping hot, without thinking of the man who was a real mentor. – NYT __
