What is agar-agar, composition, calorie content, benefits and harms of this product. Natural thickener recipes. Who first used and additional areas of application. The beneficial effect of agar agar when applied externally is to restore the hair structure. The use of a gelling agent as one of the ingredients in masks creates a lamination effect.
Harm and contraindications to the use of agar-agar
One of the contraindications to agar-agar is its use in case of individual intolerance. It can be produced for a jelly substance or for iodine, which is very abundant in its composition.
If you have a tendency to diarrhea, you should not introduce foods with a natural thickening agent into the diet. If you neglect this recommendation, the harm from agar-agar will be felt for a long time. Diarrhea can become persistent, and it will take 2-3 days to restore the body's work.
Agar Agar Recipes
Since the thickener is widely used in cooking, there are many recipes for agar agar. Of course, most of them are desserts, but the substance is also introduced into the recipe for cold snacks.
Pea sausage
An excellent dish for the diet of those who are trying to lose weight and vegetarians.
Ingredients for Pea Sausage:
- Agar-agar - 8-10 g;
- Water - one and a half glasses;
- Pea flour - half a glass;
- Beets - 1 pc. medium size;
- Sunflower oil - 1 tablespoon;
- Salt, dried garlic, coriander, origano, nutmeg powder - about 2-3 g in total.
The proportions of seasonings can be adjusted to your liking.
Cooking instructions:
- First, pea flour is mixed with water and cooked until thickened over low heat, stirring occasionally. All seasonings are added there, trying the ratio.
- At this time, dissolve the agar in cool water - 2 tablespoons are enough.
- Agar is added to a saucepan, left on low heat, and at this time peeled beets are rubbed on a fine grater and juice is squeezed out of it.
- Remove the pot from heat, add oil and beetroot juice to it.
- Everything is stirred with a blender or a whisk - there should be no lumps, and put to cool in narrow tall glasses.
- When everything is thickened, the sausages are shaken out of the glasses, wrapped with foil, put into the refrigerator.
Instead of pea sausages, you can make pea aspic - in this case, it is cooled in a plate or in a flat form.
The energy value of the dish is 85 kcal / 100 g.
Jellied trout or pike perch
Any other fish or chicken can be used instead of trout or pike perch. The cooking recipe is exactly the same, only the calorie content changes.
Ingredients for the dish:
- Fish - about 0.7 kg, better tail;
- Water - 1 l;
- Agar-agar - 5-7 g;
- Salt to taste;
- White, black and bitter peppers - 3 peas each;
- Tarragon, basil - 1/3 tsp;
- Bay leaf - 2-3 pcs.
Cooking instructions:
- The fish is poured with cold water, brought to a boil, the foam is removed and seasonings are added. Cook for 10 minutes. Then filter the broth, pour out a little and dilute the agar.
- Mix agar with the rest of the broth, set to cool.
- At this time, the fish is separated from the bones, laid out on a platter, and poured with broth. Garnish with parsley. Everything should be done at a pace, aspic solidifies much faster than when gelatin is used for manufacturing.
The approximate calorie content of the dish is 45 kcal / 100 g.
Sorrel panna cotta
Delicious low-calorie dish, an irreplaceable dessert in the summer.
Ingredients for the dish:
- Leaf gelatin - 6 g;
- Agar-agar - 1 teaspoon;
- Your choice of tonic - a glass;
- Sugar - 1 tablespoon;
- Heavy cream 33% - glass,
- Sorrel - 0.5 kg;
- Creamy ice cream to taste.
Cooking instructions:
- The tonic is boiled in an enamel pan, then agar-agar is dissolved in it. Set the container aside, allow it to cool slightly and put it in the first layer in the mold.
- Then gelatin is diluted in cold water, injected into cream and whipped with sugar. Sorrel juice is also added there.
- Ice cream is laid out in the second layer, and on top is already a half-frozen butter-sorrel mixture. Allow everything to cool together in the refrigerator.
The calorie content of the dish is 110 kcal.
Homemade marmalade
A very simple dish that even a junior schoolchild can cook. You can buy any juice in a 1 liter package - cherry, apple, pear (without pulp), as well as agar-agar - 8 g. Molds should also be prepared in advance.
Agar-agar is diluted in 50 g of warmed juice, mixed with the rest of the juice, allowed to thicken - first at room temperature, then in the refrigerator.
The calorie content of the dish is 69 kcal / 100 g.
Apple marshmallow
The calorie content of the dish is low, so it can be introduced into the diet - 200 kcal / 100 g.
Ingredients for the dish:
- Green apples - 5 pieces, better than Simirenka;
- Agar-agar - 8 g;
- Protein from one egg;
- Granulated sugar - 725-750 g;
- Water - a little more than half a glass;
- A pinch of vanillin;
- Powdered sugar - 4 tablespoons.
Cooking instructions:
- Apples are made from apples: to do this, you must first cut them in half and remove the seeds, and then bake. The apples must be very soft.
- Agar is dissolved in water - it is better to choose a saucepan with a thick bottom. Apple puree (250 g) is whipped with a blender so that there are no lumps, sugar is mixed with vanilla.
- Sugar is divided into 2 parts. One is mixed with dissolved agar and syrup is boiled from this mixture. It should turn out to be thick and transparent, golden. The second is mixed with applesauce, protein is added and everything is whipped until a homogeneous thick foamy mass. When it becomes lush enough, syrup is poured into it, without stopping whipping, in a thin stream.
- As soon as the mass has increased by 3-4 times, you need to start planting the marshmallows for drying. This can be done with a pastry bag or a tablespoon. Put baking paper on the sheet.
- They are baked at a temperature of 40 ° C. You can not bake, but simply dry.
- Sprinkle the finished product with icing sugar.
Chocolate mousse
Of all the high-calorie desserts, this one is considered one of the easiest.
Ingredients:
- Bitter chocolate with a cocoa content of at least 72% - 125 g;
- Agar-agar - 4 g;
- Sweetener - 3 teaspoons;
- Large egg - 1 piece;
- Half a glass of skim milk.
Cooking instructions:
- Milk is poured into 2 containers, both should be made of such material that it can be heated. In one container, melt chocolate, having previously broken it into small pieces.
- In another container, the agar is dissolved in the milk residues, the yolk is separately beaten with a sweetener and combined with the dissolved agar-agar. Combine the two solutions into one and allow to cool at room temperature.
- While everything is cooling, beat the protein, adding a little salt to make a thick foam. Salt will not be felt in the future.
- The cooled mixture is mixed with the protein foam and everything is refrigerated until the dish is completely frozen.
Energy value of chocolate mousse - 269 kcal / 100 g.
Berry candy
The recipe can be improved, for example, cover the jelly filling with melted black or milk chocolate.
Ingredients:
- Berry puree - 250 g;
- Granulated sugar - 160 g;
- Agar-agar - 8 g;
- Water - 200 ml;
- Powdered sugar.
The water is heated in a saucepan and the agar-agar is dissolved. Berry puree is mixed with sugar. The solution is filtered, mixed with berry puree - preferably with a blender, brought to a boil and stirred well again. The solution is poured into molds, allowed to completely solidify. When the candies are already formed, they are rolled in powdered sugar.
The calorie content of sweets is about 109 kcal / 100 g. If ginger, cloves, cinnamon or other seasonings, crushed nuts are added to the berry puree for taste, then the calorie content increases.
Dishes with agar-agar can be added to the diet in the treatment of diseases of the digestive tract, especially if the patient is prone to constipation.
Interesting facts about agar agar
The first agar-agar was made in Japan in the 15th century. Then the following production technology was used: only one species of algae was collected - Eucheuma, washed with running fresh water, immersed in rivers, then frozen, after self-thawing, everything was wiped through a sieve and allowed to solidify.
At that time, agar-agar was used only in cooking, but already in the 18th century its use went beyond the borders of Japan. Microbiologist Walter Hesse used it to grow bacteria. This idea was suggested to him by his wife, a housewife, who was taught to make agar-agar marmalade by an immigrant neighbor from Java.
It has now been found that to obtain liquid culture media, only frozen clarified agar of the first and highest grade, with a gel density of 3.2 g / cm3, should be used.2… The same agar-agar is used in physiotherapy, electrophoresis, immunodiffusion and for the manufacture of a gel for ultrasound examination.
In pharmacology, a laxative probiotic is produced from agar-agar, which is used to treat infectious diseases, the focus of which is in the intestine. Thanks to the healing nutrition, beneficial microflora is activated and suppresses pathogenic microorganisms.
Thanks to agar-agar, patients with diabetes mellitus have the opportunity not to give up sweets - marshmallows, marmalade and pastilles. These foods are often used by people who follow a strict diet for weight loss.
How to make marshmallow with agar-agar - watch the video:
Agar-agar is registered and used as a food additive in all countries of the world, which once again confirms the usefulness of a natural product.