Butterfly-Pea Flower (Bunga Telang)

The bunga telang in the garden (30 March 2013)


The Butterfly-Pea Flower, also called bunga telang, is often used when making various Nyonya kuihs in Penang. Also known as blue-pea and cordofan-pea, or by its scientific name Clitoria ternatea, the bunga telang is popularly found in pulut inti, pulut tatai and Nyonya chang.

The bunga telang has to be prepared before you can use them for making the various kuihs. After plucking the bunga telang from the garden, we would leave them to dry in a basket. While they are half dry, we pluck off the calyx (the green part holding the flower) as these don't have the blue dye. Once the flowers are dried, we put them in a plastic bag in the refrigerator until such time that they are needed. The bunga telang can be kept for a very long time - according to my mother-in-law, she has hers in the fridge for two years, and they are still usable. (I have yet to keep it for that long though).

Fresh bunga telang on the table (30 March 2013)




To get your dried bunga telang to release their dye, you have to cook it in a pot. You just need a handful (though that weighs 5 grams or less). After cooking for a while, the flowers start to release their dye. The water becomes ink blue while the spent flowers look like discarded tissue paper or papier-mâché.

Soak your glutinous rice in the resulting blue dye for at least four hours or more to ensure that the colour absorbs right into the rice. The rice grains expand in the process, so you need enough blue water to completely immense the rice to a depth of an inch. The rice should expand to reduce the depth or sometimes even emerge above the water line.

Bunga telang drying in a tray (30 March 2013)


Dried bunga telang (24 March 2013)


Cook a handful of bunga telang (30 March 2013)


Bunga telang cooking in a pot (30 March 2013)


Pour the bunga telang dye to the pulut (30 March 2013)


Pulut rice in bunga telang dye (30 March 2013)


Soaked pulut rice (30 March 2013)


Spent bunga telang (30 March 2013)

Private Guided Tours of Penang

If you are seeking private guided tours of Penang, message Penang Tour Guides at penangtourguides@gmail.com and enquire with them.

 Buy, rent or sell properties in Penang

Do you have a property for sale or to rent out? Are you looking to buy or rent a property? Get in touch with me. WhatsApp me (Timothy Tye) at 012 429 9844, and I will assign one of my property agents to serve you. I will choose the agent for you, according to your property needs. So when you message me, provide me some details of what you need, whether to sell, to buy, to rent or to rent out, and what type of property, is it condo, apartment, house, shop, office or land.

Adakah anda mempunyai hartanah untuk dijual atau disewakan? Adakah anda ingin membeli atau menyewa hartanah? Hubungi saya. WhatsApp saya (Timothy Tye) di 012 429 9844, dan saya akan menugaskan salah seorang ejen hartanah saya untuk berkhidmat kepada anda. Saya akan pilih ejen untuk anda, mengikut keperluan hartanah anda. Oleh itu, apabila anda menghantar mesej kepada saya, berikan saya beberapa butiran tentang apa yang anda perlukan, sama ada untuk menjual, untuk membeli, untuk disewakan atau untuk disewakan, dan jenis hartanah apakah itu kondo, pangsapuri, rumah, kedai, pejabat atau tanah.

您有待出售或出租的房产吗？ 您想购买或租赁房产吗？ 与我联系。 WhatsApp 我 (Timothy Tye) 012 429 9844，我将指派一名房地产经纪人为您服务。 我会根据您的房产需求，为您选择代理。 因此，当您给我发消息时，请向我提供一些您需要的详细信息，无论是出售、购买、出租还是出租，以及房产类型，是公寓、公寓、房屋、商店、办公室还是土地。

 New Properties in Penang

Looking to buy property in Penang? Get the e-brochures right here without having to visit or contact individual developers.

 Latest updates on Penang Travel Tips

 Share your travels and/or ask a travel-related question

Join the Penang Travel Tips Facebook Group to share photos, tips and anything related to your travels, or ask travel-related questions.

Map of Roads in Penang

Looking for information on Penang? Use this Map of Roads in Penang to zoom in on information about Penang, brought to you road by road.

Discover with Timothy

Let me take you to explore and discover Penang through my series of walking tours on YouTube. You may use these videos as your virtual tour guide. At the beginning of each video, I provide the starting point coordinates which you may key into your GPS, Google Maps or Waze, to be navigated to where I start the walk, and use the video as your virtual tour guide.

Disclaimer

Please use the information on this page as guidance only. The author endeavours to update the information on this page from time to time, but regrets any inaccuracies if there be any.

Songs about Penang

About this website

Hello and thanks for reading this page. My name is Timothy and my hobby is in describing places so that I can share the information with the general public. My website has become the go to site for a lot of people including students, teachers, journalists, etc. whenever they seek information on places, particularly those in Malaysia and Singapore. I have been doing this since 5 January 2003, for over twenty years already. You can read about me at Discover Timothy. By now I have compiled information on thousands of places, mostly in Peninsular Malaysia and Singapore, and I continue to add more almost every day. My goal is to describe every street in every town in Malaysia and Singapore.