Serves: 2-6
Taste: 5
Preparation: 1
Health: 1

Everybody always asks me why my popcorn tastes so good. The short answer is flavacol, a potent buttery-salt that can be found in most cinema popcorn buckets. But the real trick to good tasting popcorn lies in the cooking method, which I describe in this post.

Ingredients

Popcorn kernels
Coconut oil / cooking grade olive oil
- Optional: butter flavoured
Powdered salt
- Optional: butter flavoured (e.g., flavacol)

Method

Heat a sufficient quantity of oil to line the bottom of a medium-to-large sized metal pot.
Sprinkle popcorn kernels until they are spread out along the pot, only just touching each other.
Place lid on pot and turn up heat (preferably gas) to high.
When you hear a few kernels pop, give the pot a gentle horizontal / swirly shake and return to heat. The idea is to move around the kernels to cook them evenly without lifting them off the pot’s bottom.
The kernels should begin to pop at a much higher frequency; adjust the frequency of your shaking to match, but avoid removing from the heat for too long during this peak-popping phase.
- Note: you DO NOT want burnt popcorn – it smells bad and can ruin your pot – so make sure to keep shaking until the very end.
When the popping dies down to approximately one pop per 1.5 seconds, turn off the heat and dump kernels into a suitably sized bowl.
Sprinkle some powdered salt over the top layer of popcorn, then place a lid / board over the bowl and shake in a chaotic manner (up down left right etc.) to thoroughly mix. Repeat with more salt until the flavour is consistent throughout.
(Optional) Melt some dark chocolate (using a bowl within a pot of boiling water) and when the popcorn has cooled down enough, pour it over to evenly coat the popcorn. The clean-up is a nightmare so I only do this on special occasions.

There you have it! Delicious, somewhat nutritious, disgustingly moreish, popcorn – the perfect snack (quite literally because of its flavour to mass ratio). Stay hydrated while consuming! 🙂