Andrea and I have been on a popcorn kick lately. Those of you that know either of us (especially Andrea) know that’s not new. The new part is doing the retro/old-school/stovetop approach. Yep, we’re popping popcorn in a saucepan.
We’ve been disappointed in bag after bag of microwave ‘corn, finally deciding that the best we could find was Piggly-Wiggly store brand “natural”. However, several months ago I found a recipe for doing your own microwave bags – oil, kernels, and a brown paper lunchbag. We bought the corn, but that was as far as I got.
Fast-forward to a few weeks ago. We were wanting some popcorn, and I decided that I wanted to try out the stovetop approach. A little oil in the bottom of a saucepan, heat a bit, pour the corn in, and shake with the lid on until it stops popping. WOW! The results were amazing and addictive: fresher, with a nice toasty/roasty/nutty flavor. Plus fewer duds, and you get to tweak the condiments yourself. We don’t like butter, so no bogus chemical-soup-butter.
The advantages continue, however. We can choose what oil we use, and don’t have to use the necessarily-hydrogenated oil of microwave popcorn (for oil to be solid on the shelf, it has to be a hydrogenated oil, and most microwave corn uses palm oil). We salt it, so we can choose how much and what kind. Kosher salt, which has better flavor than your standard iodized free-flowing salt, and less sodium as well, is our current favorite. If we don’t want a big batch, we can do a small batch using a smaller saucepan; the recipe scales itself. You cover the bottom of the pan with oil, and pour in one layer of kernels. Easy! But the big benefit of popping popcorn on the stove: it’s dirt-cheap! With gas approaching the same price as milk, which would you rather spend: $2 on a box of three bags of popcorn, or $1 on a pound of corn, which makes several batches (we use ~1/2 cup per batch most of the time), plus vegetable oil and salt from your pantry?
Bonus points for anyone that recognizes the reference in the post title!
