Sub Standards - Recap

A substitute host who looks somewhat like like Alton opens with a quote, “You can’t always get what you want, but if you try – sometimes – you get what you need.” He suggests this is an excellent aphorism for the kitchen. Those who have found themselves one egg short of an omelet or missing some other crucial ingredient just as company arrives will understand. Substitution, he contends, is an art unto itself. Surely, no sales job is needed to sell the viewer on... on... I mean... Good grief!

“CUT!” rings across the kitchen as the door opens and Alton strides in. He reminds the new host that he uses the phrase, “Oh, bother.” and not “Good grief.” And while the Rolling Stones line was a nice touch, he needs to lay off the alliteration. Whether a fifth grade science teacher, a beloved television personality (Alton flashes the camera a big grin), or a beloved spice, substitutes don’t have to be the weak link in the chain. The substitute host begins a lead in spiel for the opening credits that falls flat, leaving Alton to demonstrate proper technique: to substitute, one must get inside the thing to be replaced and really understand it. Add a touch of science and a bit of know how and even when substituting the result will be... Good Eats. Alton’s substitute claims his patter was no different from Alton’s. But Alton disagrees and sends him backstage with a consolation prize: a tin of car wax and a box of rice.

Alton breaks culinary substitution into three broad categories: to compensate for a missing ingredient in an emergency, for health related reasons, and for creative reasons. Health substitutions happen to avoid allergic reactions or because someone’s diet has been constrained by a physician’s advice. Creative substitutions include “flights of fancy” where the cook simply wishes to try something new. Alton decides to leave them for another show.

His next substitute host won a “Cook like AB” contest in Grand Rapids, Michigan. She’s come to reveal what one might do if one wished to make biscuits, but discovered no baking powder in the house. Alton’s surprised – that, he says, is a very simple substitution. All chemical leavening agents work the same way.

Outside and in a rain slicker, Alton uses a model rocket to explain further. Leavening agents work by combining an acid and a base to produce carbon dioxide. Inside the model rocket is some common baking soda, one of the few bases found in cooking, and white vinegar. Alton positions the rocket so they can mix, and seconds later it jets into the air, propelled by generated carbon dioxide. When it knocks a bird from the sky, Alton quickly races back indoors. He expects a compliment for his rocket demonstration; she says she’d considered doing one but felt that it would be talking down to the audience!

Alton sets out to make baking powder. Commercial powder comes in two kinds. Single acting powder releases gas when mixed with a liquid. Double acting powder releases gas when mixed with a liquid and again at baking temperatures. Alton can make single acting powder from cream of tartar, baking soda, and cornstarch in a 2:1:1 ratio. (The cornstarch helps sequester water that might otherwise initiate the reaction too soon.)

Alton asks his substitute what else one might add cornstarch to, for similar reasons, and when she suggests kosher salt, she loses and must leave. Thing hands her parting gifts – the same tin of wax and box of rice. Belatedly realizing that Thing is a bodiless hand, she screams and passes out!

Making biscuits leads Alton to another substitution: buttermilk. It is not butter mixed into milk. Once, it was the liquid that remained after churning whole milk into butter. These days, it is skim milk inoculated with bacteria that digest lactose (a sugar) and emit lactic acid, providing an acidic tang and thickening the liquid into the bargain. In recipes, buttermilk adds flavor and provides acid. Quick breads depend on chemical leavening, which means that ideally the acid balances the alkali. Replacing buttermilk with regular milk upsets this balance. The biscuits won’t rise, or won’t rise very far. To restore the balance, Alton acidifies his milk by adding a tablespoon of lemon juice per cup. This will not immediately thicken the milk, but it will rebalance the crucial acid/alkali ratio. Vinegar also works, but citric acid promotes browning, so Alton prefers it. If time permits, Alton recommends chilling this mixture awhile before using it – that will allow the acid time to crack some of the milk proteins, slightly thickening the mixture.

Alton compares a batch of his Southern Biscuits made with buttermilk, and a batch made with his substitute “lemon milk.” Those with lemon juice, and therefore citric acid, are slightly browner. But that, Alton assures, is the only difference. They do not taste or smell like lemon.

Health substitutions, Alton’s next category, aid those suffering from allergies or food intolerance problems. A third substitute chef impresses Alton by quickly rattling off the culprits in ninety percent of food allergies: milk, eggs, peanuts, tree nuts, fish, shellfish, soy and wheat. As he explains further, Alton gesticulates behind his back. Oblivious to the Alton’s mockery, he explains that the human body sometimes mistakenly perceives certain foods as “invading proteins.” B-cells then create immunoglobulins that react to them (specifically in the case of most allergies, variants of immunoglobulin E). He stops, and there is an uncomfortable silence before Alton reminds him about a demo.

Using a balloon and a long needle, he explains the basics of how cells release immunoglobulin proteins. But when he pops the balloon and sprays flour everywhere, Alton offers him the consolation prizes. Talking quickly, he explains that he knows this first hand because he has an allergy, to shrimp. But that’s okay, because he made some coconut shrimp using Alton’s “hypoallergenic” recipe. Over Alton’s warning, he takes a bite...

... and a few minutes later, paramedics take him away, coughing and wheezing. Alton stops them long enough to lay the consolation prizes on the man’s chest and offer him an encouraging word.

That brings Alton to peanut sauce, a condiment often provided with shrimp. There is no straightforward substitute for the flavor of peanuts or peanut butter because the flavor is distinctive. But if the problem is an allergy only to peanuts (the most common food allergy) then one might build a flavor profile similar to that of peanuts with three ingredients. His pantry offers the first two: cashew butter and tahini, a paste made from ground sesame seeds. Tahini appears in Middle Eastern recipes; look for it in the ethnic aisle of a well-stocked grocery. From the fridge Alton retrieves red miso paste. Miso paste comes in various shades depending on its preparation, and figures in Japanese cuisine. Oh, and for those eyeing up that delicious-looking slab of coconut cake? That’s another show!

With substitute ingredients in hand, Alton assembles a faux peanut sauce. He adds chicken broth and unsweetened coconut milk to the mixing bowl of his food processor. Freshly squeezed lime juice and soy sauce follow them in. Chopped garlic, fresh ginger, fish sauce, hot sauce and red miso paste finish the mix before Alton takes the processor for a spin to combine these ingredients. He adds tahini and cashew butter to the mixture and purees until it is a very fine paste. To finish the flavor Alton tosses in a handful of cilantro and with a few more spins minces that, producing a “peanut sauce” that contains no peanuts. It’s good with a variety of skewered meats.

A “grip extender” offers Alton a coconut shrimp. He didn’t know there was a “substitute Thing” today... and that’s when the real Thing appears, hopping mad and bearing a heavy mallet! Both disappear and there are sounds of a scuffle and several jolts to Alton’s table before Thing reappears, evidently the winner. He tosses away the mallet, grabs the coconut shrimp and disappears with it. For some things, Alton notes, you just can’t substitute. Apparently, Thing is among them.

Alton presents a plate of cookies. These are “the chewy” cookies presented in an earlier episode. They are a poor choice for those who cannot tolerate wheat (specifically, gluten). Alton’s new recipe remedies that problem by substituting for the wheat. Brown rice flour can replace the starch, but it tends to yield crumbly baked goods and is somewhat gritty. Corn starch and tapioca flour can smooth that out. Tapioca, in particular, gelatinizes at a lower temperature which means a pleasantly chewy tooth and a nice rise. Tapioca appears in various ethnic cuisines, but for the details, Alton will need a nutritional anthropologist...

A pretty young woman, a substitute for usual suspect Deb Duchon, explains that cassava has long been a staple in South and Central America and the Caribbean. The Portuguese carried it to Africa where it thrived and rose to prominence. Known as manioc and yucca in other places, there are basically two sorts. The sweet form requires no additional processing. But most modern tapioca is from the bitter variety. It is rich in cyanogenic glycosides; processing must remove these before it is safe to eat.

Alton he notes the need to replace the protein (gluten) as well as the starch. Gluten supports baked goods like framing supports a building. What can replace it? The real Deb Duchon appears with the answer: xanthan gum. Alton permits the substitute to offer the background. Xanthan gum dates to the 1950s, when scientists discovered Xanthomonas campestris on cabbage leaves. This bacterium ferments corn syrup to produce a polysaccharide that readily viscosifies (thickens) water-based solutions. With it, food scientists create emulsions and suspensions. (The real nutritional anthropologist steps in to conclude the lecture, to Alton’s evident dismay.) It can add volume and structure, much like gluten.

Alton offers Deb’s substitute her consolation prizes and promises to call her, but she fends him off. Deb escorts her to the door, evidently to ensure she’ll disappear and not return, as a dejected Alton turns away.

Xanthan gum, despite the odd name, isn’t hard to find. Well-stocked groceries will have it in the baking aisle. So will most health food stores and, of course there is the Internet.

Alton’s gluten free chewy cookies begin with unsalted butter, melted in a small saucepan over low heat. In a food processor, Alton combines brown rice flour, cornstarch, tapioca flour, xanthan gum, kosher salt and baking soda. (Those without a food processor can simply sift these ingredients together.) Alton then puts the melted butter into the work bowl of his stand mixer and adds brown and white sugars before lowering the head and mixing these three ingredients at medium speed with the paddle attachment. After a little while, he adds an egg and an egg yolk, a little whole milk (not skim), and some vanilla extract. That’s the wet team. Alton adds the dry team to it, slowly and carefully to avoid a powdery cloud. When all that comes together, Alton adds the semi-sweet chocolate chips. Then he covers the work bowl and chills the batter in the refrigerator. Chilling is vital or the cookies will spread to an unappetizing degree.

Alton loads parchment lined cookie sheets with two ounce balls of chilled dough, six to a sheet. An appropriately sized ice cream disher works well for this. He can bake two sheets at a time in his 375º F oven, and he rotates the pans halfway through: the bottom pan comes to the top and turns 180º and the top pan comes to the bottom and also turns 180º. Alton lets his cookies cool on the pans for two minutes before transferring to a cooling rack. These cookies, he claims, are better than the originals!

Suddenly, the door opens and... Alton steps in?!? It seems that even Alton was a substitute: B.A., Alton’s evil twin, out on parole! Alton tells his evil brother that his trickery won’t work, but B.A. begs to differ, signing off with a classic Alton farewell...

Share this article with your friends