For four centuries, the French dominated haute cuisine, their recipes were handed down from hand to hand and their cookbooks became the rudder for future chefs. But in 2003, everything changed. Ferrán Adriá grabbed the cover of The New York Times with the headline The New Cuisine and after 400 years, the spotlight turned to the kitchens of Spain.

Agar is part of this story. In the 1980s, culinary figures such as Juan Maria Arzac, Martín Berasategui or Ferran Adria began to develop a new type of cuisine in search of a complete sensory experience and a revolution of the procedures carried out so far. Traditional dishes were reinvented and improved, and techniques and flavors from the East, Africa and Japan were incorporated… New materials such as mousse or spheres were studied, and previously invisible elements such as liquid nitrogen, agar-agar or xanthan gum appeared in the kitchen.

The entry of agar-agar in the culinary history of Spain dates back to 1998 and, of course, by chance. Ferran Adria and his team went to a Japanese restaurant in Barcelona, where they ate a soup containing the gelatinous ingredients of agar-agar, which does not melt with heat. Here begins the story of hot gelatin, one of El Bulli’s most popular culinary sources, which at first sight seemed impossible, because gelatin has the property of being liquid when hot and solid when cold.

Albert Adria and Oriol Castro, interested by this discovery, began to grind agar-agar fibers, discovering that it could withstand temperatures of up to 85 °C and that it allowed hot agar to be produced. In July 1998, a dish featuring hot gelatin, Roquefort sorbet with hot apple jelly, was introduced for the first time.

But Ferrán Adriá’s relationship with agar-agar did not end there. The El Bulli team set out to explore the possibilities of cold gelatin to open up a range of possibilities. Agar-agar enabled them to make sheets of gelatin which they transformed into a new “pasta” for their dishes, creating pasta or ravioli with new flavors.

Since then, agar-agar has become a staple in Michelin-starred kitchens.

Agar is an ingredient used in kitchens all over the world, gaining great popularity in recent years, due to two fundamental characteristics:

First, its great capacity to form gels, giving it a texturizing action. Agar, also called agar-agar, is composed mainly of fiber, which makes it a healthier option than other animal-based thickeners.

Secondly, agar has no flavor, making it perfect as a gelling agent, without modifying the flavors of the recipe.

Food agar is frequently used in sweets, such as ice cream, yogurts, pastries, cakes, pies, fillings, toppings, jellies, dairy products, custards, doughnuts, sweet gummy-like yogurts and is increasingly used in savory dishes such as: creams, stews (to give consistency to the sauce), vegan sausages (to give a better texture), savory pies, risottos, salad dressings, fillings, etc., among other dishes.

Its use in the kitchen began in Japan and spread to the rest of the world thanks to its popularization in the kitchens of renowned chefs, so it is increasingly common to find agar in pantries around the world.

Agar-agar is commonly used in industrial food manufacturing for its emulsifying, gelling, stabilizing and thickening properties. As an emulsifier, this ingredient helps to homogenize a mixture of two or more immiscible phases, such as, for example, water and oil, present in a food product.

Due to its properties as a stabilizer, agar maintains a certain ideal physicochemical state in the food. Finally, as a thickener, it increases viscosity.

For more information on the uses of our food agars, please contact our sales department.

One of the most important properties of agar is that it is an abundant source of fiber for our organism. Fiber is essential in our daily diet for several reasons that we will detail below.

As we all know, fiber balances our digestive system, but it is also beneficial for the heart, cholesterol, helps maintain stable blood sugar levels and there are even studies that relate it to psychological benefits.

Agar contains 94,80% of soluble natural fiber, which supposes a quantity superior to the rest of the foods of vegetal origin. The foods enriched in fiber (breads, cookies, breakfast cereals, bran, etc.) contain from 6% to 45% of fiber.

The content of dietary supplements, tablets and granulates ranges from 20% to 80% fiber. And an apple? A medium apple, eaten with skin, contains 4 grams of fiber.

As we have seen, agar can become one of the main ingredients in the kitchen to provide the recommended amount of fiber in our daily diet. For this reason, more and more people consider it a staple in their pantry. There is a wide variety of recipes in which we can use agar: flans, jams, sauces, sweet and savory cakes, creams… In this way, it is becoming easier and easier to prepare delicious healthy recipes that help our organism.

Food agar can be distributed in different formats and, although the most common is agar powder, we can also find agar in strips and powder on the market.

When agar is presented in powder and flakes, these contain a greater amount of fiber, since the agar is more concentrated. It is very common to find it in kitchens, since it does not need previous hydration.

One of the factors to take into account, especially between the powder and the flakes, is the time of cooking, since the flakes need up to 15 minutes, whereas the powder needs only 2.

As for the strips, it is more common to use them in salads, although it requires a previous elaboration, such as adding to soak for half an hour before using them.

If you have any questions about the use of agar, our customer service department will be happy to help you.

Use of agar for obtaining diagnostic tests

Did you know that you can heat dishes containing agar?

Do you have any questions about agar? We’ll answer them!

Incorporation of agar in the textile industry

Agar is the healthiest hydrocolloid on the market

Let’s begin with a short explanation of what hydrocolloids are. Hydrocolloids are a large family of polysaccharides and proteins that dissolve in water as colloids and are highly prone to forming gels. Thanks to these properties, they have a wide variety of applications. They help to texturize, thicken, bind, emulsify, stabilize, form foam, films, gel, thin and increase adherence. Due to all these applications, they can be found in countless ways in our daily life.

There is a wide range of hydrocolloids: Guar rubber, Konjac, gelatin, starch, agar, alginates, carrageenans… They are of animal origin, such as gelatin, from fruit, such as pectin, from algae, such as agar or manufactured from plants, such as xanthan gum. 

Of all the range of hydrocolloids on the market, agar is the healthiest. Traditionally, in traditional Asian medicine, it has been recognized as having various properties. Agar is moisturizing, easily digestible, satiating, regulates the intestinal transit, provides minerals, contains less than 0.2% fat, decreases cholesterol absorption and sugar and flushes out toxic residues. Finally, it is the main vegan and natural alternative to animal-based gelatin. At Agarmex we have a wide range of bacteriological agars adapted to any of your needs.

Category: Food Agar