Sodium alginate

Alginate de sodium

What it is

Alginic acid was pulled out of brown seaweed in 1881 by E. C. C. Stanford, a Scottish pharmacist looking for a use for the kelp piled on Hebridean beaches. The gelling trick that made it famous is older than elBulli by sixty years: a patent from the 1940s already used calcium-set alginate beads to make artificial cherries.

In the kitchen

It will not gel below about pH 3.6, and calcium already in the liquid — dairy above all — seizes it into lumps before it can be shaped, which is why those bases go the reverse route. Blend 0.5 % into the juice, then let it stand several hours or overnight: the air you whipped in becomes floating bubbles that ruin every sphere.

Goes with

Mango Yuzu Olive oil Balsamic vinegar Pea Tomato Basil

Something wrong here, or missing? Tell us