Blue & Purple
Dok Anchan – Butterfly Pea – Clitoria ternatea
What is that flower behind your ear? นั้นดอกอะไรอยู่หลังใบหูของคุณ. In a Thai village, the answer might be that it is a jasmine, hibiscus or butterfly pea flower. You often see women or men in Thai villages wearing flowers behind their ears on special occasions. For me personally, my answer would be that it is a blue butterfly pea flower.
In addition to wearing a blue butterfly pea flower – ดอกอัญชัน (dok anchan) or Clitoria ternatea – behind my ear while working in my garden, I would like to introduce you to its properties as a Thai culinary flower. Butterfly pea is an annual vine that is native to the land in southeast Asia near the equator. Thais love dok anchan for it beautiful unique looks and for its culinary uses as a food coloring and as an edible flower. My friend Somrak uses dok anchan in her Thai cooking at home, shredding it into a fine ribbon and adding it to rice salad, or for making a tea, or adding blue color extract to steamed jasmine rice. Many hotels in Thailand greet guests with a welcome drink made from dok anchan. But above and beyond all of these uses, our ancestors recognized it for its medicinal benefits, which include its anti-depression, anti-inflammatory, and anti-cancer properties. The blue concentrate added to hair products also promotes healthy hair growth (please see related links below).
In Thailand I grew butterfly pea plants on a trellis, but often enjoyed the harvest from friends’ gardens. In the Thai village lifestyle in the old days we shared or exchanged our surpluses with one another. The vines can produce many flowers a day, so often they went unused. This meant that at any moment there were always flowers waiting for you in someone’s garden and we helped ourselves when needed. The pigment in the flowers comes from anthocyanins, and has long been widely used in Thai and Malaysian cuisines for blue or purple food coloring for butterfly pea sticky rice. In Thailand, any foods prepared with shades of blue, purple or pink come from dok anchan. In addition, southeast Asia uses the flowers in traditional Ayurvedic medicine.
Double pedals butterfly pea flower
Where can you get dried butterfly pea flowers? In the U.S. you can mail-order homegrown organic air-dried butterfly pea flowers from Etsy.com and Alibaba.com. If you wish to plant them next summer for your backyard vine, this may be the right time to purchase them. Check online for a few sources where you can purchase butterfly pea seeds. Thompson & Morgan has the seeds for Butterfly Pea Fabaceae
Thai desert with dok anchan blue color
Khanom Chan – ขนมชั้น – Thai one-layer cake with anchan flower food coloring gets pale purple when cooked.
Thai snack, a dumpling with purple rice flour dough
Chaw Muang – ช่อม่วง, steamed dumpling, a famous Thai appetizer ใช้สีทำขนมช่อม่วง, ขนมดอกอัญชัญ
Chaw Mueng – purple dough and filling
Chaw Muang is a traditional Thai snack that can have a sweet or savory filling. After preparing a butterfly pea purple water infusion, the water is added to the dough according to the amount required in the recipe.
Step-By-Step Instructions for Making Blue and Purple Butterfly Pea Color Extracts
ขั้นตอนการทำน้ำดอกอัญชัญผสีฟ้าและสีม่วง
Blue color from dried butterfly pea flowers
Nam dok anchan (น้ำดอกอัญชัน)
First, steep 12 dried or fresh butterfly flowers in 1 cup boiling water.
Dried butterfly peas after 15 minutes of soaking in boiling water
Fifteen minutes later, or when no color is left in the petal, strain the liquid and discard the flowers. You will get deep blue water.
Fifteen minutes later, deep blue color is ready to use as blue food coloring.
Add a little lime juice to get a purple-red color
Add a few drops of lime juice. This will change the ph level and you will get purple water.
Pranee’s Tom Yum Martini with Butterfly Pea Coloring
I made butterfly pea simple syrup a day before my dinner party in order to make my signature Tom Yum Martini. A friend requests that I make them each year when I visit home.
Related articles
- Thai Snack Chaw Muang Video and Recipe (foodtravel.tv)
- Butterfly Pea Flower Drink with Lime (iluvthailand.wordpress.com)
- Butterfly Pea Flower Shampoo Product (siamnaturalsoap.com)
iLoveThaiCooking & Pranee's Thai Kitchen
Pranee's Thai Kitchen 
i have this flower in my garden in Dominican Republic. I love eating it.
I wish I have one in Seattle.In Thailand we add to rice salad. Thank you for sharing your story.
I bought this plant 2 days ago at Chatuchak Market in BKK & was searching for receipe of the flowers. Very happy to have found this site with useful informations & lovely photos.
You will enjoy your flowers all year round. Some you could let it turn into seeds and start your own seeding. So You don’t need to buy new plants. Have fun with Dok Anchan!
An e-mail note from a reader ~ I enjoy your site. However, which clitoria ternatea to be usedfor food coloring, is it the single or double petals flower? The Malay seems to use single petal. The double petal seems to be purplish instead of true blue? Thanks
i love the flowers…i had a chance to eat it..i am very excited to make blue steamed rice in my house to share with my family.. today i have planted it in my backyard fence to see it blooms..
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/s/ref=is_s_ss_i_0_12/189-7626463-6699631?k=buterfly+pea+tea&sprefix=buterfly+pea
Here is a link to where you can purchase butterfly pea.
Great article and blog! Quick question can the same tea and benefits be made from both the single and double petal variety? I noticed most blogs reference the single variety in pictures but I wonder if all the same benefits can be obtained from the double petal variety? I am looking to grow this in my garden and for obvious reasons the double variety appeals to my eye more but if the benefits are not the same I rather grow the single petal variety.
I was wondering the same. I have the double petal flower and wondered if it had the same qualities as the single variety?
The quality is in the deeper color of flower of each flower rather than what kind. Lately I have a better quality of dry flowers than previous year. It shows that the farmers pay more attention to when to harvest and more care in drying the flowers before sending them to the US.
[…] Recipe Source:Pranee’s Thai Kitchen […]
Excellent, very well written! You can also find a link to my blog on Butterfly Pea flower tea here — https://botanicalnutrition.org/2017/10/25/discover-blue-magic-butterfly-pea-flower-tea/ Thank you! – Rob
I want to make 1 gallon of iced tea with the blue butterfly flowers. How much of the dried flowers do I use?
How much of the dried flowers do you use to make 1 gallon of iced tea?
It is depending on my deep color would you like from light blue to to dark blue. It is very to play with the amount. Yesterday I made 1 cup deep blue concentrate with 1 cup boiling water over 50 flowers. I use 1 tablespoon concentrate at the time until to get the desire color. I use 3 tablespoons concentrate to 1 cup lemonade to get beautiful beautiful purple. I hope these answer help you to come with you own blue palette. Thank you for your question.
I have the same plant so can I use the beans which came out from the from this purple plant in the shape of peas kindly give
In Thailand we only use the seeds for seedlings, agriculture purpose. I don’t aware of using the bean for other purpose nor for any culinary usages.
[…] of them were natural plant dyes. The green is pandan, and the blue is butterfly pea flower. So much […]
Surely gonna try this recipe. Thanks for sharing.