The ultimate comfort food is the dish your mother makes when you return home from semesters away. For me, this was a version of the famous soy sauce chicken or 紅燒雞, translated literally as "red-cooked chicken." My mother perfected this recipe in my later college years, dispensing with fussy, unnecessary steps to arrive at such an easy and carefree procedure that she called it 懶人雞, which translates to "lazy person's chicken". I further adapted it by adding vegetables to create a one-dish meal that had my own children fighting over the flavor-drenched cabbage.

Lazy chicken with cabbage