Black and White - Three Shades of B&W

Black Olive Tapenade & Feta Crostini

Here’s a little snack to start things off. I kept the tapenade vegetarian and added a splash of soy sauce as a sad attempt to compensate for the lack of anchovies. If I’d had marmite, that might have worked too. As a cruel joke, the feta is not vegetarian, having animal rennet in its ingredient list.

Just before making the tapenade, I was using the food processor to make hot sauce. The last batch was a habanero sauce and I apparently did a very poor job of cleaning up the bowl. These turned out to be some unexpectedly super spicy little appetizers.

Now we need to prep for our soup course. This will be a black bean soup. There are the dried black beans, yellow onion, red bell pepper, carrot, celery, chipotle pepper, garlic, ground cumin, dried oregano, and ground coriander. I use an Instant Pot pressure cooker for this and do everything in the one pot. The vegetables get a quick saute and then the beans and stock go in and we pressure cook for 35 minutes.

We blend a bit of the cooked beans up with an immersion blender to get our desired consistency and then we're ready to serve. Garnish with sliced radish, cilantro, and a drizzle of a poor approximation of creme fraiche (a mix of sour cream & heavy cream).

Finally, the main course, pork tenderloin (the other white meat) over wild "black" rice with a pan sauce. Sous vide the pork for 3 hours @ 140F with sliced shallot, thin sliced garlic, and rosemary then seared in a cast iron pan. Pan sauce made with the addition of dijon, vermouth and butter. First time cooking pork tenderloin using sous vide. This is probably the best pork tenderloin I've ever had - super moist & tender. I might try a little bit warmer next time, either 142 or 145F to get a color & texture I'm a bit more comfortable/familiar with.