Editor’s note: In the Taste of Life series, cooking experts, chefs and others involved in the field of food introduce their special recipes intertwined with their paths in life.

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Hiroko Horie grew up in a home where a wide variety of dishes from Japanese to Western cuisines were served on the table.

Her late mother, Yasuko Horie, was a pioneering figure among cooking experts in Japan, who began appearing in NHK’s cooking program “Kyo no ryori” (Today’s cooking) in its early days.

She had trained under Sadako Kono, who studied cooking in the United States. All her mother’s dishes were new and Horie looked forward to tasting them.

When she was in elementary school, her mother even held barbecues on her birthdays.

“Now that I look back, it was all novel and stylish. I was also proud that my mother was good at cooking,” says the 76-year-old cooking expert.

One day, when she was in her upper elementary school grade, the children were told to cook rice and other dishes in mess tins in the schoolyard. They were separated into groups and told to decide on the menu.

While the other groups decided on white rice with curry sauce or miso soup, Horie suggested making chicken rice, which her mother sometimes made as a treat served, instead of plain rice.

They stir-fried onion and chicken in the mess tin, then cooked it with rice, water and ketchup. When it was done, the children from other groups who had finished eating and were full, gathered around enviously.

“It was the first time I cooked in front of my classmates. I was happy to hear them say how good it tasted,” says Horie.

Chicken rice became a memorable dish filled with the joy of making people happy through cooking.

In person, one gets to cook for only a certain number of people.

But through TV and the newspaper, her mother’s job allowed her to bring happiness to people who actually tried the recipe and those they cooked for.

She says she felt inspired by the “amazing job” and had decided to follow in her mother’s footstep by the time she was in high school.

This week’s chicken rice offers simple enjoyment and can be turned into “omuraisu,” typically chicken rice wrapped in a sheet of cooked eggs, or “doria,” a type of rice gratin.

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Hiroko Horie is a cooking expert born in Miyazaki Prefecture in 1947. Her mother was cooking expert Yasuko Horie. After graduating from Japan Women’s University’s faculty of food science, Horie has pursued an active career as a cooking expert on TV and in magazines. Her forte is time-saving recipes using the microwave and the food processor. Her daughter Sawako Horie is also a cooking expert and they have jointly published books including “Oishii ajitsuke 1:1:1 no benricho” (Tasty flavoring: Guidebook of 1:1:1).

BASIC COOKING METHOD

Main Ingredients (Serves 4)

340 grams rice, 1/2 chicken thigh, 1/2 onion, 3 to 4 Tbsp green peas, 250 ml water, 200 ml tomato juice, 2 Tbsp ketchup, 2 Tbsp butter

1. Rinse rice 30 minutes before cooking and leave draining on sieve.

2. Cut chicken into dices 1 cm on a side, season with a bit of salt and pepper. Finely chop onion.

3. Mix water, tomato juice, ketchup, a bit less than 1/2 tsp salt in bowl.

4. Add 1 Tbsp butter and onion in thick pot and stir-fry until onion turns transparent. Add chicken and cook until surface becomes white. Add rest of butter and rice and stir-fry until rice turns somewhat transparent and feels heavy. Add (3) and mix swiftly as if scraping bottom and place lid. If fresh green peas are used, add before putting lid on.

5. Turn to higher medium heat and when pot comes to a boil, lower heat and cook for 15 minutes. After briefly turning up heat at the end, turn off stove and let content steam for 10 minutes. Mix content as if loosening from bottom of pot. If cooked green peas such as canned ones are used, add at this stage.

About 435 kcal and 1.4 grams salt per portion
(Nutrient calculation by the Nutrition Clinic of Kagawa Nutrition University)

If a 200-ml measuring cup is used to measure the rice, the listed amount fills 2 cups.

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From The Asahi Shimbun’s Jinsei Reshipi (Life Recipe) column