Popcorn


 
Clint

Clint

TVWBB Olympian
I remember a few threads on here about popcorn, and I've had a few decent methods. I've done it in my 8qt stock pot with the lid cracked (burned probably 20% of the batches, I have the regular old air-popper, and my previous go-to was a 5qt pyrex bowl with a dinner plate over the top of it - that't take >6 minutes.

I came across a review by ATK and got their rec, & I've been enjoying it. It's not without it's learning curve but now I'm cranking out good batches regularly. I only remember dumping 1 batch but I don't remember what I didn't like about it.

1/3 cup popcorn kernels, 1T butter, ~1/2 t popcorn salt, & microwave for 3 minutes.

I've tried coconut oil & will try that again, and about an hour ago I did it as described above except I added ~1/4 cup of maple syrup. It took almost 4 minutes (was still popping like crazy at 3 so I put it on for some more time) and came out almost like a very lightly coated caramel popcorn, I'll be trying this again.

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One thing I like about this is that the butter & salt is evenly distributed, I always had trouble with that before this.
 
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I love my air popper, but getting butter/salt distributed evenly can be a challenge.

What is popcorn salt? I've been using kosher.
 
sry - should've used the name: flavacol. Not sure I have a great preference between it and finely ground sea salt, but it's easier. I'll switch back & forth & compare more.

Before this, I'd try everything but could never get the butter to distribute evenly - this works better than anything I've tried, even the maple syrup/butter combo was distributed evenly, & not burned. I'll be trying cheddar cheese before long :)

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Last saturday I overdid it with the flavacol so I put the popcorn in a gallon ziplock, shook as much salt off as I could, cut a corner off & let the excess salt out, & put it in a new bag to go with me.
 
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Clint said:
sry - should've used the name: flavacol. Not sure I have a great preference between it and finely ground sea salt, but it's easier. I'll switch back & forth & compare more.
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When I was a wee lad in college, I had a campus food service job where we had a commercial popcorn machine, and we used Flavocol plus some sort of oil to make the popcorn. Flavocol sent out that aroma that drew people far and wide to the popcorn machine, and it has food colorings that create the rich yellow color you see in commercial popcorn.
 
Good tasting popcorn is my weakness! My wife knows one day she is going to come home to find a movie theater popcorn machine in our basement! I consider movie theater popcorn to be the 5th food group!!
Tim
 
I can't imagine 1 tbs of butter doing a whole batch of PC and secondly putting butter in the microwave for that long a time will scorch the hell out of it leaving an awful smell (I despise the smell of cooked butter makes me gag).
My wife uses a 10" straight sided saute pan this http://www.calphalon.com/en-US/calp...ss-steel-3-qt-saute-pan---cover-ca-1891272--1 is the exact one we have with a small amount of grape seed oil. She has never scorched it. She puts into a huge bowl, tosses with melted Kerrygold slated butter and finely ground sea salt. Best ever! MWave, and air popped can't even hold a candle to good old fashioned skillet popped corn. We also always buy the Boy Scout popcorn. It's the best and when I can I buy some from a local grower here between Cherry Valley and DeKalb who grows an organic product also VERY nice.
I gave away all the silly "appliances" we tried (hot air poppers, microwave poppers, etc) nothing but wasted time and space.
I like the grape-seed oil because it's very neutral (imparts no flavor) and can take intense heat with no smoke or scorching so it leaves the popcorn tasting like ..............well corn and the butter salt impart just the right flavor. So IMO ATK got it wrong VERY wrong and all the other stuff fuggedabodit!
 
We've used the popper like Clint's for years.
I checked my past Amazon orders, I bought the 35 oz carton of Flacacol on September 2011 and we still have maybe 3/4 cup left, it doesn't take much.
We make popcorn pretty often.
Wife measures, I just dump in a little veg oil, seasoning, and popcorn.
I only buy white popcorn.
 
Chris Allingham said:
When I was a wee lad in college, I had a campus food service job where we had a commercial popcorn machine, and we used Flavocol plus some sort of oil to make the popcorn. Flavocol sent out that aroma that drew people far and wide to the popcorn machine, and it has food colorings that create the rich yellow color you see in commercial popcorn.
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I bet it was coconut oil, that plus flavacol are supposed to be the best. I didn't use much in the single recent batch I tried with it, but I remember noticing & liking the flavor years ago. I'll try it again.
(just a quick article I found: https://food-hacks.wonderhowto.com/...e-exactly-like-movie-theater-popcorn-0151117/



Tim K said:
Good tasting popcorn is my weakness! My wife knows one day she is going to come home to find a movie theater popcorn machine in our basement! I consider movie theater popcorn to be the 5th food group!!
Tim
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Better to ask forgiveness than permission :) on one of the radio stations over the last couple weeks, they were interviewing someone from a movie theater & they said how people would walk in & just buy the big tub of PC. My aunt would take all us kids (there were a lot & she didn't have a ton of money) to the movies & we'd sneak in a big grocery bag of homemade :)



LMichaels said:
I can't imagine 1 tbs of butter doing a whole batch of PC and secondly putting butter in the microwave for that long a time will scorch the hell out of it leaving an awful smell (I despise the smell of cooked butter makes me gag).
My wife uses a 10" straight sided saute pan this http://www.calphalon.com/en-US/calp...ss-steel-3-qt-saute-pan---cover-ca-1891272--1 is the exact one we have with a small amount of grape seed oil. She has never scorched it. She puts into a huge bowl, tosses with melted Kerrygold slated butter and finely ground sea salt. Best ever! MWave, and air popped can't even hold a candle to good old fashioned skillet popped corn. We also always buy the Boy Scout popcorn. It's the best and when I can I buy some from a local grower here between Cherry Valley and DeKalb who grows an organic product also VERY nice.
I gave away all the silly "appliances" we tried (hot air poppers, microwave poppers, etc) nothing but wasted time and space.
I like the grape-seed oil because it's very neutral (imparts no flavor) and can take intense heat with no smoke or scorching so it leaves the popcorn tasting like ..............well corn and the butter salt impart just the right flavor. So IMO ATK got it wrong VERY wrong and all the other stuff fuggedabodit!
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1 tbsp is pretty light but it's evenly distributed. I'm sure you'd change your mind if I sent you a batch.



Bob Correll said:
We've used the popper like Clint's for years.
I checked my past Amazon orders, I bought the 35 oz carton of Flacacol on September 2011 and we still have maybe 3/4 cup left, it doesn't take much.
We make popcorn pretty often.
Wife measures, I just dump in a little veg oil, seasoning, and popcorn.
I only buy white popcorn.
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My flavacol expired in 2013 :rolleyes: Still have about half left.


I got Jolly Time yellow popcorn this time, but I made some with that multi-colored organic popcorn (think it was organic, it was $1.99/lb @ the bulk bin @ the grocer). I couldn't tell the difference, it's all come out nice.
 
Our flavacol has been in a fruit jar for a long time now, so I have no idea if it's expired or not, probably so, but you'd never know it.
White popcorn, to us, has a lot less hulls than yellow.
 
I went to my friend (& cousin's husbands) house for dinner tonight - before I went I made some popcorn (it was her mom who took us to the movies) to see how she liked it. I made 2 batches - the first was 1/3 cup popcorn, a lil salt (1/2 tsp if I had to guess, but measured in my palm), & 1T coconut oil. Batch 2 was the same, but at 2 minutes (of 3) I quickly opened the microwave and thew in some thinly sliced smoked extra sharp white cheddar. I ran that batch for nearly a total of 4 minutes. Everybody loved it, including their kids. I think a finer sliced or grated cheese would work a little better, but the cheese flavor clumped in clusters (I threw it in quickly & gave it a quick shake, wasn't sure what it'd do, or if it'd even ruin the batch), but the flavor spread throughout the entire batch. I noticed some cheese oil at the bottom of the microwave bowl, so that must've had something to do with it.

Her husband & my friend is J Lummus, I've been trying to get him to join for years and he finally did last week. He wound up with a Silver C not long ago.

Here's the strip steaks he cooked for dinner tonight:

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Once in a GREAT while for the kids (I did it more when we had our exchange students and both daughters at home) I would have my wife make her great old fashioned pan popped PC and than I would make home made caramel (REAL caramel with cream and butter) than toss the buttered popcorn with the caramel. They would go nuts for it.
 
I remembered this post from a few years back about the smoke point of various oils, can't vouch for its accuracy.
https://tvwbb.com/showthread.php?46358-Smoke-point-of-various-oils

It says 250 to 300 for butter, a search shows many sites say it's 350.
I made 2 microwave batches last night, one like I normally do with veg oil, the other with butter, first time trying butter.
I'll be experimenting more with using butter, it was great, with no smoking or off flavor.
 
My method for popcorn is: Pop on stove top with coconut oil, then toss in bowl with clarified butter, lastly finish with flavacol. Very good stuff.
 
I had a big popcorn failure last night - recipe as follows:

2 palm fulls of dark chocolate chips
~3T maple syrup
1/3 cup popcorn
~1/2tsp flavacol
a couple slices of cheese

.........it turned out about as good as it sounds :)

(badly burned)
 
LMichaels said:
Once in a GREAT while for the kids (I did it more when we had our exchange students and both daughters at home) I would have my wife make her great old fashioned pan popped PC and than I would make home made caramel (REAL caramel with cream and butter) than toss the buttered popcorn with the caramel. They would go nuts for it.
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I was checking out an ATK recipe like that - I remember having it as a kid. Sounds involved but I hope to try something similar.

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LMichaels said:
Sorry Clint...........doesn't sound good to me
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it was garbage.
 
I cook it 4-5 nights a week. Brown Kraft lunch bag. 1/3 cup of kernels. No oil of any kind. Fold the top closed. Microwave until it almost quits popping. Melt some real butter and pour over it. Shake a little salt. Easy, no extra chemicals. Tasty!
 
Kelley Brown said:
I cook it 4-5 nights a week. Brown Kraft lunch bag. 1/3 cup of kernels. No oil of any kind. Fold the top closed. Microwave until it almost quits popping. Melt some real butter and pour over it. Shake a little salt. Easy, no extra chemicals. Tasty!
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how do you drizzle it? It always seemed to clump & was so unevenly distributed when I did it separately.
 
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