Andrew Zimmern’s Recipes: January 2012

Andrew Zimmern is famous as the host of the Travel Channel’s Bizarre Foods, but he's also a born-and-bred New Yorker, a classically trained chef and a Minneapolis-based home cook. He brings every part of his experience to bear in the recipes he shares here, bridging the gap between exotic flavors and American comfort food.

February 2012 | January 2012 | December 2011 | November 2011 | October 2011

In the winter, I always make tons of this pasta and freeze it in quart-size Ziploc bags for quick meals. It’s inspired by some of the best sauces I’ve eaten all over Italy and NYC... I like this sauce with tubetti or short mezzi rigatoni, so that it gets into all the holes. The pork lends fattiness, the wine gives a balanced acidity and the pancetta delivers all the wholesome saltiness you could ever want from an ingredient.

You can put a lot of stuff between two slices of bread and call it a sandwich, but here are seven I’d walk across burning coals to eat. Seriously. »

The cooking technique for the duck can be used to great effect in other recipes too, and the only mistakes you can make are not cooking your duck slowly enough or overcooking it. At home we team this dish with steamed Japanese short-grain rice, a cucumber salad with rice wine vinaigrette and grilled asparagus or Chinese broccoli.

Everyone needs an easy, simple and elegant meal that provides great leftovers (think salmon salad, salmon cakes, salmon aspic) and that all the family will love. No one poaches fish anymore, but it’s the ultimate feed-a-crowd meal. Hot in cold months, cold in warm ones—I adore poached salmon.

Salting fish is one of the oldest and most popular forms of preserving around the world, and salted fish are always cheap and plentiful... If you go to St. Croix, Trinidad, Jamaica and some of the other large islands in the Caribbean, you can still find stalls serving these fritters—just look for the markings of an old taxi or bus stop on a lonely stretch of road, and you’ll see vendors serving passengers their fill of salt cod fritters. The sauce is one I found years ago, and it goes superbly with all types of fried seafood, especially fritters.

Photo courtesy of the Travel Channel

Home sweet home—on the Stone Arch Bridge over the Mississippi River’s St. Anthony Falls. One of the best views of the Minneapolis skyline. »

This is a traditional moqueca, which is a fish stew. But to some, this recipe is a vatapa, because it has nut butter added to it. And here’s the million-dollar payoff: Brazilian seafood stews of this type will blow your mind! Every time I cook this dish for friends and family, the reaction is the same: amazement. And I think the reason is that we are so used to Western and Mediterranean flavors when it comes to seafood chowders, stews and pan roasts that the seminal and delightful flavors in this dish surprise and delight every time.

February 2012 | January 2012 | December 2011 | November 2011 | October 2011

Photo courtesy of the Travel Channel

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