Agar

Would be interested to hear of any experiences using agar.
I am sure some of you have had experience using agar in cooking. Almost certainly more than I have.
Once or twice I have attempted dishes for a vegan friend, and although acceptable have turned out too firm. I used quantities gleaned from the 'net, but as always there is a lot of contradictory information out there.
So I am going back to my roots, in this case my scientific background. I searched for agar plates rather than culinary usage I am familiar with the consistency of culture media so.... what I found is that agar plates run at around 1.3 to 1.5 % agar
whilst culinary info was telling me nearly twice that. So I am about to run off and give that a try, but meantime any personal experiences would be of interest.
cheers
Barb

[Jenise]

I've never used agar. I've never even seen it for sale, but then I'm neither much of a baker or a jam/jelly kind of person, and that's where I'd guess most agar uses would be. What are you doing with it?

When my Malaysian friend gave me a recipe for a golden mango -- um, I don't know what to call it. Pudding?

The recipe specified agar and I went searching for it, and found it in asian groceries and health food stores.

What I found was long clear rectangular solids, and I was impressed at how much more expensive it was per use than Knox's or other regular gelatine. Given that nobody we know is Vegan, I'm not sure how or why it might be considered better than gelatine. I suppose horse hooves or whatever might transgress certain religion's sumptuary laws.

Since I am surrounded by labs that use agar in other ways I probably could have just pilfered some but frankly I don't personally know the people that use it so that would have been uncomfortable. And sometimes the standards are different, for example, don't take home lab ethanol to spike your watermelon unless you like to ingest traces of benzene!

Image below shows pretty much exactly what I bought, but too big to display here.

http://aminerecipes.files.wordpress.com ... 0/0042.jpg

I've never used agar. I've never even seen it for sale, but then I'm neither much of a baker or a jam/jelly kind of person, and that's where I'd guess most agar uses would be. What are you doing with it?

I tried it to replace gelatine in pannacotta and would also like to perfect it for aspics, which can make pleasant garnishes etc., vegetable terrine and other things cross my mind from time to time. Just nice to have a repertoire of animal free dishes of all types.
BTW the 1.5 % test was also way too solid, bummer. Back to the drawing board, time permitting.
Also agar is readily available here in Asian stores, both as the strands in Frank's post and as a powder.

Coincidentally, this was part of a recent thread on an email discussion list. This resource was posted: Hydrocolloid Recipe Collection

Thanks Cynthia that is a very useful resource. A quick read through and I think I have a misplace decimal point!!! which could explain almost everything1

which could explain almost everything1

Perhaps.

There must be some reason why agar is better than gelatin?? Why are you bothering with agar??

There must be some reason why agar is better than gelatin?? Why are you bothering with agar??

In my house the reason is vegetarianism by the other householder.

There must be some reason why agar is better than gelatin?? Why are you bothering with agar??

In my house the reason is vegetarianism by the other householder.

Totally understand that, thank you.