Food

SAPPHIRE DELECTABLES

Courtesy of Home Sweet Abroad. Sweetened Coconut.

When we first sat down to write a post about sapphires and food, we thought of blue food. Blueberries, blue corn, blue potatoes, blue lobsters… But then we discovered something new -- at least new to us and all of the other foodies we know -- something genuinely sapphire blue -- the Butterfly Pea Flower, an herbal plant from Thailand.

Photo: Courtesy of Instructables. Butterfly blue pea flower.

The Butterfly Pea comes in white, purple, and blue, but it is the blue ones that capture our hearts and imagination today. The plant comes loaded with a pile of medicinal benefits, many documented by reputable sources like the Harvard School of Public Health. The Butterfly Pea is regaled for strengthening hair, improving eyesight, boosting immunity, lowering diabetes and obesity risk, and delivering antioxidants. It guards against a range of eye diseases, such as glaucoma and cataracts. We could go on and on about the health rewards of the Butterfly Pea, but today, it is all about the sapphire blue.

The intense sapphire color comes from anthocyanin, a flavonoid with a high level of bioactivity.

Photo: Courtesy of Xinfully.

The flower is known as Dok Anchan, in Thailand, where it mainly grows. The latin name for the blue Butterfly Pea might make your cheeks pink. It is clitoria ternatea. And once you know that, you can’t help but see the reason in its shape.

It is a culinary flower, used by the Thai to color their food blue. Sometimes it’s sapphire blue. Sometimes it’s pastel. You can buy Butterfly Pea Fabaceae seeds from Thompson & Morgan.

Photo: Courtesy of Xinfully. Butterfly Pea Tea

What sapphire concoction might you want to eat or drink? Let’s start with tea. In Thai, it is called Nam dok anchan (น้ำดอกอัญชัน). Like liquid sapphire in a cup, Butterfly Pea Tea is a simple tisane of the flower petals steeped in hot water, often accented with lime. The more petals you steep per cup, the bluer it gets. I like it unsweetened, but you can add honey if you prefer.

Photo: Courtesy of Xinfully. Butterfly Pea Tea

If you steep the blossoms you get a gorgeous liquid sapphire that can color all sorts of things. If you want to keep it in the Thai theme, consider the Thai dessert Khanom Chan - ขนมชั้น, the Thai snack, a dumpling with purple rice flour dough Chaw Muang – ช่อม่วง, or the steamed dumpling, a famous Thai appetizer ใช้สีทำขนมช่อม่วง, ขนมดอกอัญชัญ

If you are lucky enough to have access to the fresh blossoms, trying julienning them and mixing them with rice or pasta. They’re also gorgeous tossed with green beans.

Photo: Courtesy of Tuwa the Laughing Fish.

You can add fresh or dried flowers as you cook your rice too. In Thailand, most of this rice is pale blue, but if you add enough petals, you will have a pot of sapphire grains in the end.

Photo: Courtesy of Flip-Flops and Hot Pots. Blue Rice.

Pranee Khruasanit Halvorsen, who writes Pranee’s Thai Kitchen Blog, and teaches Thai cooking classes in Seattle, turned us onto the idea of a Butterfly Pea martini. She makes hers with butterfly pea simple syrup and adds a little lime juice, which turns the potion purple.

Photo: Pranee Khruasanit Halvorsen. Sapphire Martini

We like ours a bit drier and bluer. So we steep some of the petals in vermouth, steep some in Bombay Sapphire Gin (natch!), then we shake them together into a sapphire blue bliss.

Xin comes from a Mayalasian family of foodies. Her husband is Thai, from the countryside in Isaan in the northwest part of the country, known for its “eating culture.” Together, they embark on culinary adventures in Bangkok, marrying the flavors from their childhoods. Xin’s blog, Xinfully, is a joy to see. Her photography talents are illustrated in her Butterfly Pea pictorial, including her handful of blue blossoms and tea above.

Photo: Courtesy of Xinfully.

Read about the beauty of Sapphire all this week, as it relates to Arts/Design, Nature/Science, Food/Drink, Place/Time, Mind/Body, and Soul/Impact, including Sapphire Soul, a piece about ethical mining, New Sapphire Pages, and Sapphire Science Rocks! a collection of beautiful new books featuring sapphires.