5 Things to Cook While Watching ‘Arrested Development’ Reruns

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/07/smarter-living/arrested-development-netflix.html

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The fifth season of “Arrested Development” doesn’t arrive until next year, but until then, you can get your fix of frozen bananas and Bluth family egotism by streaming reruns of the show on Netflix.

Enjoy these classic episodes with dishes selected from our trove of recipes on NYT Cooking. And if “Arrested Development” isn’t your cup of hot ham water, check out previous installments in the TV Dinners series: what to cook while binge-watching “Seinfeld” and “30 Rock.”

Have a great “Arrested Development” food moment I missed? Email tvdinners@nytimes.com and let me know.

Lucille Bluth, in addition to being the matriarch of the Bluth clan, is a cocktail enthusiast. When you picture Lucille in your mind, she’s invariably holding a martini glass, which she often complements with a barb and a sardonic look.

In “Switch Hitter,” she asks her son Michael for a vodka on the rocks. When he reminds her that it’s still breakfast time, Lucille compromises by adding “a piece of toast” to her order. You too can enjoy the Lucille Bluth breakfast special by pouring yourself a perfect martini — what Robert Simonson calls “the undisputed king of cocktails” — and soaking it up with a nice piece of toast. If you’re feeling extra fancy, try this recipe for Spanish French toast.

You’ll be forgiven if you don’t remember George Michael’s girlfriend Ann. (Yes. Her.) She was, to most of the Bluth family, offensively inoffensive, remarkably forgettable. She ate eggs in a way that charmed George Michael but put off his father, Michael, who had trouble remembering her or even noticing when she was in the room. The recipe for a “Mayon-egg” is simple: Just squirt a small packet of mayonnaise into your mouth, pop in a hard-boiled egg and slosh both around. For a more refined recipe — and one that your friends and family are unlikely to forget — I recommend our recipe for classic deviled eggs. Like Ann, there’s nothing fancy or surprising about this recipe: It’s just a good, reliable standby.

Lindsay Bluth Fünke is, like a majority of her siblings, an entitled dilettante without much of an instinct for domesticity. Perhaps that’s why, when she finds a can of ham, she decides to put it in a pot of boiling water. It’s not soup, she tells her brother, it’s a more literal interpretation: “hot ham water.”

The results are mixed. Buster, the youngest and simplest Bluth sibling, assesses the dish this way: “So watery. And yet there’s a smack of ham to it.” If you’re looking for an elevated take on hot ham water, I recommend this recipe by Eileen Yin-Fei Lo, which combines egg noodles, fresh pork (not canned) and so-called Shanghai cabbage (canned) with Chinese flavors.

In the 1970s, George Bluth Sr. tried to diversify some of his business by selling the Cornballer, a deep-frying device that was more dangerous than it was profitable. Ever since, it’s been Bluth family tradition to enjoy corn balls together (with the understanding that one is never to touch the Cornballer).

If you’re looking for a safer way to enjoy spending time with the family while watching “Arrested Development” reruns, you should check out these cane syrup popcorn balls, which also make for great Halloween treats.

As all good fans of “Arrested Development” know, there’s always money in the banana stand, the bedrock of the Bluth family fortune. When we meet the Bluths, George Michael is assigned to run the frozen banana stand, a job so stressful that he and his father ultimately burn down the shack in the beginning of Season 1. This is all before the family patriarch, George Sr., reveals that he has lined the stand’s walls with $250,000.

If you’re stressed because you just ignited your family’s secret financial security blanket, you might want to ease your nerves with a frozen banana daiquiri. It also works for kicking back with a classic episode of “Arrested Development.”