I have an American friend in Japan who teaches cooking classes to Japanese who want to learn English.  He has been doing this for years, so maybe it works.  It sounds like fun and you learn two useful skills!

Yes, I've done this a lot. I've even had to work out new systems of measurement, as not all languages follow the spoon/cup or g/ml methods.  I have cookbooks in about seven or eight languages, and it does offer an interesting insight into the culture of a language.  For example, where we would use imperatives (fry... boil... simmer...) for instructions, other languages might use different grammar (eg. we fry... we boil... etc).  One of my cookbooks doesn't give any times for cooking - you just cook the food until it's ready.  I suppose if you're cooking, you should already know how long things should be cooked for. ;)

I haven't tried it before, but it sounds like a great idea. If you don't mind, you could share the recipes you find that are good. 

I think it's a great idea. I don't do it systematically for language learning, but I love to buy cooking books and cooking magazines in my target languages and try out authentic food. Do you also use http://www.chefkoch.de/? It's THE cooking community in Germany. Everybody looks up recipes there and they also have videos.