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Thursday, September 23, 2010

Anti-recipe#12 Stovetop popcorn, "kettle style"

So, up until about a year ago I didn’t eat popcorn. At all. Ever. In fact the smell of it, wafting through an office building (who, I ask, pops a bag of popcorn at the office?) or at a movie theater made me feel ill. Also it didn’t help that the stuff made me actually violently ill to eat.

And then I discovered a lost art. Stovetop popcorn. Something surely June would excel at.

Hmmm. I wonder if all those years I thought I couldn’t eat popcorn was because of all the crap chemicals they put in micro popcorn? Hmm. Maybe?

In any case. When my girl was born someone brought us a meal of chili and a bag of home-popped popcorn. And I was hooked.

So, I use coconut oil to pop my popcorn. It is impossible to overheat and results in a light fluffy popcorn. I don’t know why. That is the kind of food science stuff I don’t try and understand. But something about this kind of oil makes for a better fluffier pop.

Drop about 2 tablespoons of coconut oil in a big pot. Drop in 2 or 3 kernels of corn. Cover. Turn on burner to high.

While your oil is heating take a tablespoon of butter, melt in micro, add a tablespoon of coconut oil, a tablespoon of olive oil (again, guessing, I just dump) and – this is the key – a few drops of stevia.

What is stevia? It’s an herbal sweetener. It’s hard core intense stuff. Be cautious. Buy it at Whole Foods or some place like that. DON’T buy the processed “stevia sugar” stuff they make. I am talking in a glass bottle with a little dropper. Just pure stevia extract.

Stir this mixture.

When the oil is hot enough the two kernels will pop. Turn to Medium High (or so)

When this happens drop in half a cup of kernels (or so – you know me, I just dump a bunch in). Now, the key part to not burning the popcorn – hold the lid on (with an oven mitt! Learned the hard way!) and shake the popcorn, lifting it up off of the burner every minute or so. Constant shaking, really, this is the key.

When the kernel popping slows down to every few seconds you are nearly there. Start shaking off the finished popcorn from the top into a large bowl, placing back on the burner to catch the last few kernels (if you want, if you care.) REMEMBER THE OVEN MITT to hold the lid in place. OW.

Layer popcorn from the pot with your butter mixture. I like to pour a little popcorn in, then the mixture, then repeat etc. This is easier and more effective than trying to stir it into the huge bowl, IMHO (In My Humble Opinion). (My husband likes to dump the whole batch in a paper grocery bag and then shake it. Every time he does this my response is WHAT ARE YOU DOING?? But, it does work I guess. Just seems…unsanitary or something? I don’t know.)

Sprinkle each layer LIBERALLY with sea salt. Sea salt is about all we use around here. I forget why exactly it’s better for you. The kind of information I knew once then promptly forget. (Again with the food sciency stuff) Read here if you care to know more. (I am being somewhat flippant about the salt, it really is because regular salt is purified and bleached and stripped of lots of naturally occurring minerals. And this is a really interesting article about lots of other changes in diet that you can make, little things like that. We used to eat much more like this and are transitioning back to it, as this article describes.)

And there you have it.

The result is like kettle corn, sweet and salt. Truly delish.

Hmmm. It’s a rainy day. I feel like Harry Potter and popcorn. Perfect really.

(hope you like it Tracy!!)

2 comments:

  1. Yay!! I can't wait to try it! Looks like I need a trip to the store, though--I only have the powder-stevia from Trader Joe's. I've never seen it in a dropper before, so I guess a trip to Whole Foods is in order. :-)

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  2. tracy - is it just regular stevia? i didnt know it came in powder form... what i meant to avoid was the "sugar-substitute-derived-from-the-stevia-plant" stuff they have now...i am sure it would work fine, as long as you stir to dissolve it into the oil/butter mixture...
    yum. i need to make some now.

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