carrageen

Carrageen moss is one of Ireland's more unusual natural resources. First of all, it's not a moss: it's a seaweed. And to add to the confusion, there are any number of ways to spell its common name: carrageen, carrageenan, carragheen and carragheenan, take your pick. They're all derived from the Irish word carraigín, which means "moss of the rocks" (though some think that the -á­n ending is actually an Irish diminutive, which changes the word's meaning to "little rock" and connects it to a relatively common Irish place name).

At any rate, the scientific name of the Irish version of the seaweed is Chondrus crispus. This reddish-brown plant grows on or near just about every Irish coastline. It has been used for centuries as a food additive. Local people would gather and dry it -- usually in the sun: this treatment bleaches it. When someone wanted to use it in a dessert (which might be a long time later, as dried carrageen lasts just about forever), all that had to be done was to soak the dried seaweed in warm milk or water, depending on the recipe. The seaweed then releases a delicate natural gel that acts as a setting agent when the dessert mixture cools.

These days, carrageenan's main worldwide use is as a thickening agent in all kinds of commercial food preparations (shakes, ready made desserts, and so forth). But it's still used in various Irish traditional dessert dishes, especially when the cook wants a more authentic effect than gelatine would produce. Probably its commonest use is in that ancient and traditional dessert, the blancmange -- a light, molded sweet pudding. In blancmange, which must have a light and subtle taste to work correctly, the carrageenan adds a hint of the sea -- a delicate flavor hard to identify but very habit-forming once you've experienced it.

Carrageenan can usually be found in health food stores, and can often also turn up in gourmet specialty stores. Click "read more" for the blancmange recipe.

(Looking for still more traditional Irish desserts? Click here!)

Carrageen is a seaweed (its formal name is Chondrus crispus). Finding seaweed in the same sentence with the word "pudding" may seem a little strange. But carrageen is the product of one of Ireland's longest-running industries, and a very useful ingredient for the cook... especially one who's looking for jelling or setting ingredients that don't involve animal products. (By the way, greetings to our visitors from the forums at PostPunkKitchen.)

There's no telling who first noticed that this seaweed produces a thick jellylike substance that will jell up and set whatever liquid it's introduced to. The discovery may go back to Bronze Age times. But for many, many years, small seaside communities in Ireland eked out their income by gathering the carrageen seaweed from the rocks near their homes, drying and bleaching it (usually in the sun: nowadays the drying is handled in commercial ovens) and then selling it on as a setting agent, cheaper than gelatine and with its own unique, subdued flavor of the sea. Carrageen has made its way from Ireland all over the world, and can normally be found without too much trouble in health food stores, which sell it with an eye to its natural content of minerals and iron as well as for its natural thickening and demulcent qualities. (It turns up in cough medicines and numerous other preparations for sore throats and troubled chests, as well as in cosmetics and all kinds of food. Numerous dairy products in North America -- especially yogurts and sour creams -- now routinely contain carrageen as a thickener, instead of being made as they were back in the days when dairy products were given enough time, or allowed a high enough butterfat content, to thicken themselves.)

After it's been processed, the carrageen seaweed retains only the slightest taste or scent of the sea. Some people don't care for this: others think it adds a unique flavor to a dessert, an edgy, slightly spicy quality. This taste works particularly well with citrus flavors, and treatments including orange, or lemon, or both -- as in this pudding -- are commonplace in Irish cookbooks of the last couple of centuries.

Handling the carrageen itself is quite simple. A brief soaking in warm water activates the frilly, springy seaweed. After that it's simmered gently for a while with the milk of your choice: these recipes work as well with soy, rice or oat milks as they do with full-cream dairy. Sweetened and flavored -- in this case with lemon and orange juice and rind -- the thickened mixture is then strained, poured into bowls or molds, and chilled. The final product is a delicate dessert, suitable for having cream poured over it, or a tart fruit sauce. Carrageen's "set" tends to be more fragile and delicate than that of commercial gelatines, that being one reason that cooks who know about it seek it out. But if you're thinking of doing a carrageen dessert in a mold and you really expect it to stand upright, you'll want to increase the amount of seaweed you use in the cooking by about half.

Click on "read more" for the recipe and method.