Butterfly Pea Flower Pasta Dough by @saltyseattle

This is a water-based dough for a reason. If you add eggs to butterfly pea flowers, you’ll wind up with a muddy, unattractive green-blue.

Makes approximately 16 ounces of dough, or four 4 ounce portions

Ingredients

3/4 cup boiling water

1/3 packed cup butterfly pea flowers

2 cups “00” pasta flour

Directions

Add the boiling water to the packed flowers and stir to make sure all flowers are submerged. Allow to steep for 10 minutes. Pour the steeped mixture through a strainer directly into the bowl of a standing mixture containing the flour. You may not need quite all of the steeped liquid, but be sure to reserve it by pressing it into a separate liquid measuring cup in case you do.

Fit the mixer with a paddle attachment and mix on low speed until a ball of dough forms. Continue to knead, either by hand or in the mixer for 5 minutes, so that the dough develops elasticity and silkiness. Seal the ball of dough in plastic wrap and let it rest at room temperature for 30 minutes before sheeting. Alternatively, you can let the dough rest for up to 24 hours in the refrigerator. The color sometimes intensifies after that, although the dough is still usable for up to 3 days.

Note: The white pasta dough was made using the same method with the color coming from milk and cream instead of the blue water.  The red dough is an egg-based pasta which was dyed with beet puree. Here is @saltyseattle's basic red egg pasta dough.