Gail Simmons, host of Bravo's 'Top Chef: Just Desserts' and Ted Allen, host of the Food Network's 'Chopped'.

Theirs are the ultimate foodie gigs. As hosts of two of the hottest chef showdowns on TV, they mingle with the masters, sample rare, new flavors, watch emerging chefs compete in that hungry, near-train-wreck scramble that seems obligatory on reality TV competition shows.

Gail Simmons (Bravo’s Top Chef Just Desserts) and Ted Allen (Food Network’s Chopped) love their hosting gigs so much they sometimes bring the job home. Well, so to speak.

They try out tips and recipes they pick up from chatting with the master chefs who guest-judge their shows, say the food show hosts who will appear at the star-studded South Beach Wine & Food Festival next week.

“One of my favorite parts of this job is that I get to stand there and talk to chefs like Alex Guarnaschelli and Scott Conant about how to make fresh pasta and roast venison,” says Allen by phone from his New York home. “And I also learn from watching many of our contestants. They’re always introducing new ingredients in our challenges.”

Simmons, who is also special projects chief at Food & Wine magazine, says the rewards of her Bravo experience are many.

“I’ve learned so much along the way, in little ways. I’ve learned a ton from our guest chefs, from Tom Colicchio and the parade of embarrassingly talented guest chefs. Just listening to their perspective on food, I pick up new words and new flavor combinations every day,” says Simmons, former special events manager for star chef Daniel Boulud’s restaurant empire. (She was part of the team that launched Café Boulud in Palm Beach in 2003.)

A culinary school grad with a 15-year career in the food industry, she’s quick to note she’s not a chef. “I’m a chef cheerleader. I’ve been a recipe tester, a line cook, but I’ve never led a kitchen Seeing what the young contestant chefs go through, they’ve given me such an education,” she says.

For Allen, who is “cooking like crazy” at home as he works on a new cookbook, the job has inspired new culinary adventures. In fact, that’s the working title of his book – The Kitchen Adventure (to be published by Clarkson Potter in the spring of 2012).

On Chopped, where competing chefs must create dishes using disparate, often difficult or obscure ingredients, the adventures posed can be humbling.

“That basket – and the difficulty of the combination – is a great equalizer,” he says. “We’ve had Rocky Mountain oysters and goat brains. But I’d almost rather see ingredients like that than processed, junky foods.”

His home cooking often involves slow, fragrant braises, particularly on snowy days like those he’s watched outside the window of his Brooklyn home this winter.

“I love to buy a cheap, tough piece of meat, gather the aromatics, and let it all cook low and slow for hours and hours. I love the depth of flavor that you get from a long braise,” says Allen, who first surfaced on the culinary scene as the food and wine connoisseur on Bravo’s Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.

Simmons, too, finds solace in her New York kitchen. It’s where she goes to recover from a hectic travel schedule, nights of calorie-rich culinary events and mediocre room service.

“I’ll be gone for a few weeks and then I’ll come home and nestle. I love cooking. I find it’s the most relaxing way to end my day,” says Simmons, who grew up around a busy kitchen in her native Toronto. Her mother ran a neighborhood cooking school from their home kitchen.

Just back from a culinary trip to the Cayman Islands, Simmons says she’s in a “big vegetable phase” at the moment. “I’m making a lot of kale salads with poached eggs and Parmesan. And soups – like barley and chicken stew, lentil soup, cannellini beans with kielbasa and kale, hearty but healthy soups. I make a big vat of soup that I can have for the week,” she says.

Her home-cooked dishes are often inspired by her travels.

“When I walk through the markets, I want to take a piece of them home,” she says. “We went on our honeymoon to Vietnam and I was totally invigorated. When I got home, I shopped for three days to make a Vietnamese feast for friends. But then I realized, it’s about the salads and the simply grilled meats and fish that make this cuisine. And it looks so easy, but there’s a reason why it’s so good. It’s labor intensive and complex. Trying to replicate the dishes was such a humbling experience.”

CRISP ASIAN SALMON WITH BOK CHOY AND RICE NOODLES

Recipe by Gail Simmons

(Serves 6)

4 cups low-sodium chicken broth

2 cups water

1⁄4 cup mirin

1⁄4 cup low-sodium soy sauce

1⁄4 cup rice wine vinegar

2 tablespoons minced fresh ginger

2 garlic cloves, minced

1 teaspoon sugar

8 ounces rice vermicelli, broken into 4-inch lengths

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

6 center-cut salmon fillets with skin (about 6 ounces each)

Salt

1 pound baby bok choy, cut into thin wedges 2 scallions, thinly sliced

In a medium saucepan, bring the broth, water, mirin, soy sauce, vinegar, ginger, garlic and sugar to a boil.

Meanwhile, bring a large pot of water to a boil. In a bowl, soak the rice noodles in very hot water until pliable, about 10 minutes. Drain the noodles and add them to the boiling water. Cook until tender, about 4 minutes. Drain and transfer to 6 shallow bowls.

In a large nonstick skillet, heat the oil until shimmering. Season the salmon fillets with salt, add them to the skillet skin side down and cook over high heat until browned, about 4 minutes. Turn and cook until medium-rare, about 4 minutes longer. Set the fillets on the noodles.

Add the bok choy to the boiling broth and cook until bright green, about 2 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, divide the greens among the bowls and spoon in the broth. Garnish with the scallions and serve.

RACK OF PORK WITH PEAR APPLE COMPOTE

Recipe courtesy Ted Allen

(Serves 4)

FOR THE BRINE:

1 cup kosher salt

1⁄2 cup honey

1 cup water

10 juniper berries

2 (6-inch) sprigs rosemary

10 peppercorns

1 bay leaf

2 cloves garlic, smashed

1 (2-pound) rack of pork (pork loin roast with 4 rib bones), frenched (ribs scraped clean of meat and fat), skin-on and scored in a 1-inch diamond pattern

Oil, for pan

FOR THE COMPOTE:

1 shallot, chopped

1 Granny Smith apple, peeled and diced

1 Bosc pear, peeled and diced

1⁄2 cup dried cranberries

1⁄2 cup orange juice

1⁄2 cup apple cider

1 tablespoon brown sugar

1 tablespoon Dijon mustard

2 teaspoons chopped fresh rosemary leaves

1⁄2 teaspoon salt

1⁄2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Pinch cayenne pepper, about 1⁄8 teaspoon

In a small saucepan over high heat, dissolve the salt and honey in a cup of water. Remove the pan from the heat, and add the juniper, rosemary, peppercorns, bay leaf, and garlic. Let steep until the water cools to room temperature, about 20 minutes. Add the brine mixture to a large container with a lid, and add enough very cold water until you have a gallon. Submerge the pork in the brine and cover with lid. Let marinate, overnight, in the refrigerator.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Remove the pork from the marinade, rinse and pat dry, Add a coating of olive oil to an oven-safe pan. Sear the pork until all of the sides are a deep golden brown. Transfer the pan to the oven and roast the pork until an instant-read thermometer inserted in the middle, reaches 150º, about 20 minutes a pound. Remove to cutting board, tent with foil and let rest for at least 15 minutes.

While the meat is resting, prepare the compote.

Pear apple compote: Drain all but 2 tablespoons of fat from the roasting pan. Put the fat in a medium pan and add the shallots. Saute the shallots over medium heat for 5 minutes. Add all of the remaining ingredients, bring to boil. Reduce the heat to medium and cook the mixture until soft and thickened, about 5 to 8 minutes.

Transfer the compote to a serving bowl. Carve the pork into individual chops and serve with compote.

IF YOU GO

Both TV hosts are appearing at the South Beach Wine & Food Festival, which runs from Feb. 24 through Feb. 27.

• Gail Simmons will host the Dolce wine brunch at the Delano hotel in Miami Beach from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Feb. 26. She will be joined by James Beard Award-winning Chef Michael White (of New York restaurants Convivo, Alto, and Marea).
• Ted Allen will host CHOPPED, a Barilla-sponsored interactive cooking dinner, at the Biltmore hotel in Coral Gables from 7 to 11 p.m. Feb. 26, featuring Marc Murphy, Alex Guarnaschelli and Aaron Sanchez.

For more information about the Wine & Food festival, visit: www.sobefest.com