Braised Red Bean Curd Chicken

This home-style dish could easily have come straight out of southern China, and it probably did. It has been a standard item on the family tables of countless Chinese homes in the West. And it is typical of the hearty cooking my mother would prepare on an autumn or winter evening in Chicago. That is to say, this is a cold-weather dish.

One virtue of this treat is that my mother could make it the night before, or before she set off for work in the morning. Then, in the evening, she w