Bad taste stars in 'Worst Cook'

Anne Burrell has cooked for some of New York City's best restaurants. She served as Mario Batali's sous chef on Food Network's "Iron Chef America." And she's hosted her own series, "Secrets of a Restaurant Chef" on the channel for four seasons.

Nothing prepared her to co-host her newest Food Network show, "The Worst Cook in America," which begins airing at 10 p.m. Sunday.

The show pits Burrell against chef Beau MacMillan as each attempts to teach basic culinary skills to two teams of six tragically flawed cooks who are nominated by friends and family to be on the show. The twist: Burrell and MacMillan take turns picking the worst cooks for each other's teams.

For the first show Sunday night, Burrell and MacMillan selected candidates after asking contestants to cook a dish that expresses what the food in their life resembles. The chefs then were forced to stomach their way through some awful creations to assess each contestant.

Burrell said during an interview earlier this week that the food created by the candidates truly shocked her with how poor it was.

How did you stand eating all that? There was food in that initial group that bordered on a hate crime.

Oh, gosh, you have no idea. It was tortuous eating all that.

There was one peanut butter dish that, I think you said, was "a huge plate of brown."

Normally I say, "Brown food tastes good." But, man, that was an exception to the rule. That dish had a half a cup of cayenne pepper. I tasted it and my eyeballs almost shot out of my head, it was so spicy.

It was cayenne pepper and peanut butter on cod fish.

On cod fish! Man, it was just a travesty. That poor cod. I was, like, wow, this poor fish had to suffer for this?

The other dish in the opening show that stands out is a turnip dish that wound up being the worst of the original group.

Oh, my gosh. ... rutabagas and turnips. Those are two vegetables that are out of the norm for even experienced cooks. So to jump out there with those two vegetables and stuff them with tri-tipped beef, rhubarb and asparagus and then put it in a frying pan and shoot it in the oven with no liquid, no oil, no salt and to expect it to come out edible is something that is beyond comprehension to me.

If you're going to make a dish, you want to make one that is comforting for you at least.

A perfect example was the girl who did a penne pasta dish with an envelope of sauce. She put cheese on it and olives. Then she added pineapple for crunch. Wow. Pineapple isn't crunchy. That was truly out of left field.

Let's say one of the people watching you is the worst cook in America and they wanted to make something this morning for a holiday brunch. Is there a dish that would be easy for them to try?

I'm a huge fan of the poached egg. You could put a poached egg on a piece of toast and put a little sauce on it and it seems fancy.

Any recommendations for those of us recovering from the New Year's celebration? A hangover remedy?

A delicious Bloody Mary. I really like something that's sort of garlicky and tomatoey. I would do a baked eggs and tomato and some sort of pork product going in there.

Mmmm. Pork product.

Bacon makes it better, baby.