Emboldened by the suavity of my spiffy new blender, I decided to play around with Shannon’s white bean dip recipe and make… BLACK BEAN DIP!
Hey, I’ve suffered a few Great Kitchen Failures recently, so… baby steps.
I subsituted 1-for-1:
- black beans for white
- the juice of 1 lime for the juice of 1 lemon
- fresh cilantro for fresh dill
I also added a little salt but otherwise made the dip exactly as the other recipe reads. I envisioned the results being a deep, lovely black like the shiny skins of the beans, forgetting for the moment that the “meat” of the bean is significantly lighter, so I was initially disappointed by the purplish quality of the dip. (This is kind of the norm for me. I’m a very visual person, and if whatever I’m making doesn’t look exactly like I intended, I’m usually a little miffed.) But after I stopped pouting, I started to really appreciate the velvety texture of the dip, and the color, although not the deep midnight I had planned, is striking and not at all unappealing (pics forthcoming). The lime juice is a little sharp, so in future incarnations, I’ll probably scale that back to maybe 1/2 a lime and then adjust to taste.
I took the end product in to work today, and it met with hearty approval. The only “constructive criticism” I received just confirmed my analysis about the lime juice, and a coworker has asked me to make two batches each of the white bean and black bean for a party she’s going to next weekend!
On a more personal note, I’ve decided to call my new blender Annabelle.
ETA: Velvety purple goodness!
