Popcorn!
September 26th, 2008 by ComputerBob
Anyone who’s read How I Lost More Than 100 Pounds knows that one of my favorite healthy snacks is air-popped popcorn.
Since air-popped popcorn isn’t cooked in oil, it’s incredibly dry and salt doesn’t stick to it very well. That’s why I used to spray my popcorn with Smart Balance buttery spray before I salted it. It tasted great, but Smart Balance’s pump sprayer sprays large droplets that get the popcorn “wet,” causing it to shrink to a smaller size.
In an effort to find a solution to that problem, over a period of several weeks, I tried aerosol butter-flavored sprays from Pam, Walmart, Publix and Crisco. I discovered that they all help the salt stick to the popcorn, and none of them makes the popcorn wet, but the Crisco spray smells and tastes a lot more like butter than the others.
That’s why, a few months ago, I switched to Crisco butter-flavored spray. It adds a wonderful butter flavor to my popcorn and allows salt to stick to it. The secret is to spray the butter spray onto the top layer of popcorn in the bowl and then immediately sprinkle some salt on the popcorn before the spray soaks in. Then, shake the bowl to “rotate” the buttered/salted popcorn down into the bowl and bring unbuttered/unsalted popcorn to the top. Repeat the process of spraying, salting and shaking a few times, until your popcorn is as buttery and salty as you like.
And speaking of salt, even though it costs more than regular table salt, popcorn salt is worth its price. It’s ground much tinier than regular salt — in fact it’s almost a powder — so it sticks to the popcorn better than regular crystalized salt, which means that you can use less of it — a great idea for anyone who needs to keep an eye on their sodium intake.
If you follow these instructions, you’ll have a very healthy snack that’s absolutely delicious and very satisfying.
As for which popping corn I use, for the past few years, I’ve been buying Jolly Time popping corn at my local grocery store. A 1-pound bag costs about $2 — which seems like a lot to those of us who remember paying 50 cents a pound for it a few years ago — but it’s less than half the cost of a plastic jar of Orville Redenbacher popping corn.
A few days ago, I was discussing popcorn with my excellent next-door neighbor and good friend Mike, a recent convert to air-popped popcorn.
Because he’s retired from the air force, Mike can buy Jolly Time popping corn at a nearby military base for about 60 cents per pound — less than 1/3 of what it costs at our local grocery store.
That’s a pretty good deal — until you compare it to the price of bulk popping corn at Sam’s Club. There, we can buy Act II popping corn for only 33 cents per pound — if we buy a 50-pound bag of it. That’s 1/14th the cost of Orville Redenbacher popping corn at our local grocery store, 1/6th the cost of Jolly Time popping corn at our local grocery store, and 1/2 the cost of Jolly Time popping corn at the local military base.
Plus, after I saw that it says “Minimum Expansion 44:1 on the Act II bag, I did some online searches and discovered that high quality popping corn is generally expected to have a minimum expansion ratio of 35-38:1, but that some of the newer premium hybrids can reach 40:1 or more. According to that standard, Act II’s 44:1 expansion ratio is very, very high, and should result in lots and lots of very fluffy popcorn.
Taking everything into consideration, it didn’t take long for Mike and I to decide that, once we figure out how we’re going to store it to keep it fresh — I found some web sites that say that if you freeze popping corn, it will pop even bigger than normal — we’re going to split a 50-pound bag of popping corn from Sam’s Club.
Anybody want to buy some of it?
Permalink:
http://www.computerbob.com/wp/popcorn.php
Tags:
Consumer Info, Friends, Funny, Images, Personal
December 2nd, 2010 at 9:25 am
Don’t put it in the refrigerator or freezer. I found this online at a popcorn machine website while looking up other info:
To ensure popcorn maintains the appropriate moisture level, never store pop corn kernels in a refrigerator or freezer. This can dry them out very quickly. Also do not store them in a moist basement or in a humid garage.
The best place to keep your unpopped pop corn is on a pantry shelf (at room temperature, below 90°F) in a sealed container. You can typically expect popcorn to have a shelf life of about 18 months.
December 2nd, 2010 at 10:12 am
Hi Rick,
Your comment made me re-research the topic, and I think your advice is correct; however, since I store my popping corn in heavy, airtight Ziplock freezer bags, it doesn’t have the opportunity to lose (or gain) any moisture during storage. And it always pops up really big — but, now that I think of it, with its high expansion ratio, it might not get any “additional boost” from being stored in the cold. I think I’ll try your advice and see how it works out.
July 23rd, 2011 at 8:00 pm
I just ran across this and found it an interesting read. I love popcorn. I at one time lost a decent amount of weight and popcorn helped me do it. Here is a economical way to pop your corn. Microwave popcorn is not a special kind of corn. It is the same as we buy unpopped in the bag. Put about 3 0r 4 tablespoons of plain old popcorn in a lunch size paper bag and fold the top over around 1/2 inch a couple of times and then tape the fold down. Put the bag in the microwave and place on high 1 and a half or two minutes or until the popping starts to slow down. The first kernels will start to pop in around 45 seconds. Give your popcorn a spray of butter flavored spray and a little salt and enjoy. I estimated my costs on a bag of this wonderful popcorn about 9 cents per bag.
July 23rd, 2011 at 9:02 pm
Thanks, David — that looks like a winning idea!
July 24th, 2011 at 12:04 pm
David, I just tried the method that you described, and it worked wonderfully!
I put 4 level tablespoons of popping corn (from a sealed bag in my refrigerator) in a brown paper lunch bag, folded the open end 1/2-inch down twice and taped it with an inch of regular scotch tape. Then I stood it on its end (so that the kernels would gather together to attract more microwaves) and set my microwave oven for 2 minutes. I stopped it after about 1:45, when the popping slowed down.
The paper bag was completely full. I dumped it into a big bowl, sprayed it with butter-flavored spray, and salted it. There were no burned kernels, but there were about 1/2 tablespoon of unpopped kernels. Next time, I’ll reduce it to 3 1/2 tablespoons of popping corn.
The popcorn was absolutely delicious — in fact, it tasted very “corny,” like oil-popped popcorn! What a great idea! This is my new favorite way to make healthy popcorn!