Or you can use dry sherry

Ken Hom, one of the vintage TV chefs, always stands out in my thoughts for an expression which he uses time and time again, in fact it seems almost with every recipe which he demonstrates. When he gets to the point where he is going to add some Chinese wine to his stirfry he smiles into the camera and says " or you can use dry sherry if you prefer." It always raised a little giggle and in fact became a catchphrase in our house but thinking it through the other day I came up with a totally different perspective.
Ken was actually encouraging viewers to substitute an ingredient in a recipe and in a cuisine such as Chinese cooking which is not exactly free-form but rather very strictly structured, this was fairly close to heresy. He didn't go so far as to deconstruct the recipes or introduce a host of western ingredients into his stir fry style but he did have the guts to suggest that a perfectly acceptable result could be achieved with non traditional ingredients and really that is what cooking is all about. The recipe is a guideline but is not set in concrete, it is a starting point not a finishing point and if Ken can promote this concept in his own little way well then I'm prepared to excuse his pseudo American accent and terrible dress sense.