What ingredients can be added to pasta to give a different color?
I've experimented with fresh pasta, using the following ingredients to color it:
Beetroot puree
Carrot puree
Cocoa powder
The first two were successful, the cocoa poweder resulted in a very visually appealing but rather disgusting pasta.
Any other suggestions for stuff you can put in the dough, other than the banal versions using spinach or dried tomatoes, to make for interesting colors?
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Purple kale leeches blue anthocyanins into the water when it's cooked. Perhaps you could juice and then cook purple kale?
Squid ink is a classic of course.
Turmeric would make an eye-searing yellow.
Also, cocoa pasta can be very nice served hot with very cold ice cream.
Try Matcha tea, buy the culinary matcha as it is less expensive.
Some things I've tried (separately):
tomato, in paste form;
fresh broccoli / spinach, finely chopped;
lemon, juiced and zested; and
if you're feeling fancy, saffron.
As for cocoa, I'd probably add sugar to offset the taste of the unsweetened cocoa powder.
Also, since roux suggested turmeric, I'm thinking it might be interesting to add curry powder, which already contains turmeric.
Have you tried blueberry, cranberry and currant?
P.S. I have no clue if it will be eatable :)
Amaranth greens will get you pink pasta. Potentially VERY pink pasta.
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