I am constantly fascinated by food science. I love researching and understanding why things happen and work as they do. That brings me a lot of comfort and joy to be able to control and anticipate what an outcome will be.

I  posted on my Instagram stories some behind the scenes of making this soup and there were actually 3 instances of color before the end result: 

(1) at first, the soup liquid was blue. 

(2) then, after fully cooked and blended, it turned purple

(3) and lastly, after I added lemon juice, the soup turned pink. 

Now, why is that? What sorcery did we just witness?  To start off, we need to acknowledge the role of PH in food and cooking. To put it simply, foods or substances can be either acidic or alkaline and that can affect taste, texture and color. 

Most red or purple vegetables are water soluble - that means that when cooked, they bleed their color into the water (like red cabbage or beets) . Tap water is tipically alkaline. 


So when the raw red cabbage gets in contact with the cold water (ALKALINE), it turns the water BLUE (alkaline + red = blue) 


As soon as the PH stabilised through cooking and becomes NEUTRAL, the soup turned PURPLE (neutral + red = purple). 


And when I added an ACIDIC element (lemon juice), the soup became PINK (acidic + red = pink). 


This is also the case with beetroot, blueberries or even garlic. Have you ever made a cake with blueberries where you used baking soda and the blueberries turned green? That's why. PH baby. That's the beauty of playing and creating, you get to enjoy the magic of cooking unfolding before your eyes, and it's mesmerising.


The dish is a red cabbage cream soup, served with Pâte brisee and caramelized onions & apples. Looks a bit like bumblebees visiting a beautifully open flower, don't you think? 🌸 🐝