Tonight, get ready to get back in the kitchen, as “The Bear” returns for Season 3. Throughout its first two seasons, the show has served up some sumptuous dishes, from casual staples like Mikey’s family spaghetti to elaborate holiday menus like the Feast of Seven Fishes. If you’re feeling hungry during the show’s hiatus, Globe has five recipes from “The Bear” dishes you can try at home.
1. Chicken Pepper (season 1, episode 2)
The episode focuses primarily on the restaurant’s failed health inspection due to the kitchen’s oily rags and unsealed vents filled with cigarette packets, but it also gives insight into The Beef’s most popular dish: despite its health rating of C, the restaurant continues to be inundated with orders, most of which are for the “chicken pepper.”
Try this Grove Recipe Correspondent Lisa Zwirn’s colorful dish of tender chicken breasts and balsamic peppers, a sheet-pan version of chicken and peppers;
2. Tina’s Mashed Potatoes (season 1, episode 4)
Tina (Liza Colon-Zayas), The Beef’s longtime chef, has really nailed her culinary game in Season 2, but she was initially reluctant to change. When Sydney (Ayo Edebiri) tried to upgrade Tina’s mashed potatoes by mixing rosemary with thick cream, Tina didn’t comply. When Tina left the cream to burn, she was forced to use Sydney’s rosemary cream. She wasn’t happy and she didn’t have time. When mixing it into the potatoes, she decided to give it a try, responding with a solemn “Damn it.”
Try this Grove Recipe Correspondent Sally Pasley-Vargas’s “make-ahead” mashed potatoes are fluffy and creamy, made with Yukon and russet potatoes.
3. Mikey’s Beef Braciole (Season 1, Episode 8)
This iconic Italian-American dish is featured in a flashback scene where Carmy (Jeremy Allen White), longtime family friend and “cousin” Richie (Ebon Moss Bacharach), and his siblings Mikey (Jon Bernthal) and Natalie (Abby Elliott) gather in the Belzatto family kitchen to hear Mikey’s story. In the episode, Mikey asks Carmy to help him lay out some thinly pounded steaks on the table and sprinkle them with breadcrumbs, greens, pine nuts and Parmesan. “We’re going to have some good food,” he says. [expletive] “Throw some raisins in,” Mikey tells his sister, adapting his mother’s recipe. Carmy finishes by rolling up the steaks, waiting for them to dip into the tomato sauce Mikey has prepared.
Try this Grove Recipe This dish, inspired by a vintage cookbook and created by Globe food critic Devra Furst, calls for raisins, although some might choose to forgo them, just like the younger Belzattos did.
4. Mikey’s Family Meals Spaghetti (Season 1, Episode 8)
The spaghetti, which Carmy initially described as “a sludgy mess with not enough seasoning and too much sauce,” became a source of controversy in season one when the young chef tried to take it off the menu. With many questions remaining about Mikey’s decision regarding the restaurant, Richie delivers Carmy a letter from his late brother containing the spaghetti recipe. Mikey’s secret? Using a small can of San Marzano tomatoes (expensive, but tasty). While preparing the spaghetti, Carmy pours the contents of the small can into a frying pan and is surprised to find a rolled up $100 bill inside. In the season finale, kitchen staff open the can, splattering tomatoes everywhere in an attempt to collect the hidden fortune.
Try this Grove Recipe Vargas’ recipe uses fresh tomatoes instead of canned ones, giving spaghetti a refreshing twist.
5. The Feast of the Seven Fish (season 2, episode 6)
One of the series’ most chaotic and iconic episodes, “The Fishes,” is presented as a flashback, chronicling the dramatic Christmas Eve dinner before Mikey’s death. With a star-studded cast, Belzatto family matriarch Donna (Jamie Lee Curtis) prepares “The Feast of the Seven Fishes,” a series of meals featuring a variety of seafood dishes. Drunk and acting erratically, Donna collapses in the confusion and ultimately crashes her car into her home, causing family trauma for the Belzatto children for years to come.
Try this recipe from Globe Magazine Enjoy a Sicilian twist on a seafood feast (minus the family drama), including fish stew, pasta with fennel and sardines, and marinated roasted red peppers with anchovies.
Maria Jose Gutierrez Chavez can be contacted at mariajose.gutierrez@globe.com.
