Herbal alternative to gelatine

Herbal alternative to gelatine: agar-agar in the kitchen

Self-cooking and baking are back in fashion. Home-made not only tastes delicious, but you also know what's inside. For example, anyone who wants to make their own creams, mousses, puddings, cakes or jellies often needs a gelling agent or thickening agent to help them get firm. Instead of gelatin, which is usually made from connective tissue, hides or bones of pigs, especially vegetarians and vegans like to agar-agar.

This is a vegetable gelling and thickening agent derived from dried red or blue algae. It is available in well-stocked supermarkets, health food stores and health food stores, and it is usually sold as a powder.

However, the use of agar-agar requires some experience. Since the gelling strength of this gelling agent is up to ten times higher than that of gelatine, depending on the manufacturer, gelatine can not be replaced one to one by the vegetable product. A rule of thumb: Instead of 6 sheets of gelatin you need about two-thirds teaspoon of agar-agar. In addition: Depending on the product or manufacturer, the gelling power may vary. Therefore, it is important to follow the preparation instructions on the packaging. And: agar-agar - unlike gelatine - must be stirred into liquid and boil for a few minutes in any case, otherwise the food does not gel. It only becomes solid when cooled, when it has a temperature of around 35 ° C. But then it is very fast.

For acidic and fatty foods, the gelling ability of agar-agar may be slightly weaker. If you want to know if you have used enough gelling agent, make a gelling sample. For this you put a tablespoon of the boiled liquid on a flat plate and let it run a little. If it gels on the plate, the entire mass should become firm. If the gel sample turns out to be negative, it may be necessary to boil even more agar-agar with the mass.

This vegetable gelling agent is especially suitable for foods that need to be boiled whole, such as jelly or pies. With a trick, you can also use it for the cream of a cheese cream cake. Depending on the recipe, you cook some liquid (eg fruit juice) with agar-agar and let it cool down a bit. Then carefully stir the sweetened cottage cheese and then the whipped cream. Now you fill the mass on the cake bottom with cake ring and put the cake in the fridge. Incidentally, foods prepared with agar-agar become more rapidly solid than those prepared with gelatin. Hedda Thielking, bzfe