The extract of Blue Pea Flower was commonly used as a natural dye for making Nonya Kuehs such as Pulut Inti & Pulut Tai Tai. It was also used to dye Nasi Kerabu.

Blue Pea Flower

a.k.a Butterfly Pea Flower

a.k.a Bunga Telang

In recent times, many recipes omit the colouring altogether or substitute it with a synthetic food colouring. The Blue Pea Flower is also less commonly available though sometimes we can still find some growing on fences.Extracting the colouring from the flower is a tedious process which yields very little dye. One requires quite a large quantity of flowers in order to obtain sufficient dye for a recipe.

I'm determined to try to grow my own Blue Pea Flowers in the event that I should (dreamy expression) one day decide to make some Nonya Kuehs with the natural dye. I don't know when that day will come but one's got to have some aspirations or at the very least, dreams, right?

I think that this project would be an interesting way of preserving part of the Peranakan heritage. In case you're wondering, I'm not Nonya. I'm fascinated by how the Nonya women of yore devoted almost all their time towards perfecting their craft in the kitchen.

I was elated to discover that my neighbour had a beautiful Blue Pea plant growing on his fence (they're creepers). I asked for a some seeds. It's been about 10 days now & the 6 seeds that I planted have sprouted. I'm hoping that they will grow well as I do not have green fingers.

Wish me luck! :)