I wrote a blog post titled Pasta Colours in Belize a couple of months ago. We hadn’t finished our experimentation at that point because the pasta machine couldn’t take the Munchkin and Gnome marathon. Anyway, I promised that we would continue with the pasta colours on a later date. Now that we have the noodle machine, we re-started our research on other pasta colours in Belize. I mentioned that we needed a tomato red/orange alternative…this is what we have come up with. First we tried powdered annatto and this it the result. It’s isn’t your typical orangey tomato…it is more rusty brown-orangey:

We still thought that it was a palatable and vibrant colour for a dish. Annatto powder is bland so you don’t get much in terms of contribution of flavour. The next experiment was carrot juice….this one we have fallen in love with…carrot pasta/noodles!! What a lovely colour!

We have also been looking at sources of green coloured pasta. Just as a re-cap, we’ve had spirulina pasta:

We have tried calaloo, an popular green amaranth that is grown in Belize:

We have also made chaya pasta. Chaya (Cnidoscolus aconitifolius) is a green vegetable found in Belize…everyone in Belize says they love it and it’s heaps good for you but I have never seen a Belizean dish with chaya in it. This is what the plant looks like:

We got very nice results with chaya; oooh, such a beautiful mottled look!!

Chaya is a good source of protein, vitamins, calcium and iron. Using it as an ingredient in pasta/noodles boosts the nutritive value. We are also very pleased with this colour.

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