A beloved chicken and rice dish, streamlined for weeknights

By Genevieve Ko, The New York Times

From last Lunar New Year to this one, my life has gone through challenges and changes, and I wanted to shield my kids from all of it. It turns out that, despite my best efforts, they in some way perceive what’s happening, so I instead try to give them what stability I can. When that’s out of my control, I cook.

I want to believe that a favorite meal will make them feel like they’re home — even if we’re no longer circled around the same kitchen table we once shared. The problem is, we don’t have a tight little list of family dishes. Given my work as a recipe developer, their childhoods were filled with endless experiments: dozens and dozens of Christmas cookies, 17 versions of roast chicken, hundreds of dumplings. The dishes they remember the most clearly are the ones they tasted so many times in such a short span that they can no longer eat them. (Sorry about banana bread, kiddos.)

If pressed to name ...