Martha+Tom

Old-Fashioned Popcorn with Ghee and Garam Masala

Like most people my age, I grew up on microwave popcorn. Actually, I have a memory of an air popper with a yellowish-brown plastic top that melted butter and shot popcorn into a bowl, but most of the popcorn eaten in my life has been made in a microwave. Which is amazing because microwave popcorn is really really bad. It is always either burning or leaving half the kernels un-popped, or both. Horrible and frustrating, but it was all I knew.

All I knew until a few months ago, when my life changed. Did you know you can make popcorn on the stove? I don’t mean with one of those exploding foil pans either, but in a pot. It’s as simple as pouring a layer of fat (we usually use olive oil but as long as it’s a lipid it will work) and then covering the bottom of the pan with popcorn kernels. As it happens, the Wedge is an excellent source for local popcorn in Minneapolis. Keeping the pot uncovered, apply high heat. As soon as the popcorn starts to pop, cover the pot and reduce the heat to medium. If you don’t cover the pot, you will soon have popcorn all over your floor. Once the popping slows down significantly, to about one pop every five seconds say, I uncover the pot and reduce the heat to low for another minute or two. At this point all that’s left is to add salt or other flavorings, which I usually do by pouring the popcorn into a large paper sack, adding salt and whatever else, and shaking.

This method has really increased my appreciation of popcorn. For one thing, I have yet to burn a kernel. A burnt kernel of popcorn can turn you off to the whole batch, so this is a major plus. Probably the best thing is being able to control exactly what goes into your popcorn. If you’re concerned about excessive salt, fat or chemicals, making popcorn the old-fashioned way lets you control exactly what goes in rather than being left to the whims of the diabolical Mr. Redenbacher (You only have yourself to blame when you go overboard with lard-popped, bacon-salt corn). This also gives you a lot of room to experiment with flavors. As I mentioned, you can use whatever fat you like, all for different flavor effects: olive oil, butter, lard, bacon grease, suet, other vegetable oils, really anything. For the batch that inspired me to write this post, I used ghee, Indian clarified butter that, at least in the case of my probably too old jar, has a kind of funky, goaty character.

You can play with the fats at the front end of the popcorn process, and then at the back there is an even bigger range of possibilities to be explored with flavorings. Salt is fundamental to all of this, but an obvious variation might be to use the assorted flavored salts, like celery salt or garlic salt. With the garlic salt you might add a little dried dill. Our most recent batch of popcorn involved olive oil and freshly grated parmesan cheese and ground black pepper added at the end. For my popcorn with ghee I decided to embrace Indian flavors and added some garam masala. When adding spices as flavorings always keep in mind that your ability to taste them is wholly dependent on there being enough salt; don’t be shy with the sodium chloride. On the other hand, overly salty popcorn gets fatiguing to the tongue fast; mastering the yin and yang of popcorn salting will probably take a few batches. As Martha reminds me when I get too salt happy, it is easy enough to add more but pretty hard to take it away.

Indian-Style Popcorn

Since starting to make popcorn this way I’ve been eating and enjoying it a lot more. It really doesn’t take much more time than making it in the microwave and the end result is so much better that the two aren’t even comparable. The ability to play with the flavoring offers a lot of entertainment, but even if you were just to go the traditional butter and salt route the sound of popcorn popping around inside your pot is reward enough for any extra effort.

5 comments | , , , , ,

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5 comments on “Old-Fashioned Popcorn with Ghee and Garam Masala”

  1. Linda 27 March, 2009 at 6:33 am

    Ah, the blessings of learning new ways to enjoy “old” treats. I grew up on the kind of popcorn you describe you’ve just learned to make. My Mom always put in a few tablespoons of oil and three kernels of popcorn. When those three kernels popped it was time to add the 1/4 to 1/3 cup, put on the lid and shake the pop while the popcorn popped.

  2. Tom 27 March, 2009 at 11:50 am

    I’ve read quite a lot of discussion about both the question of whether to add the corn to hot or cold fat and to shake or not to shake. For me laziness always wins, so I add all the popcorn with room temperature fat and don’t shake. This has worked out well but it might be worth trying hot fat and shaking to see if there is some benefit.

  3. Ryan 28 March, 2009 at 12:13 pm

    Wow probably the most exciting youtube video I have ever seen.

  4. Tom 28 March, 2009 at 1:29 pm

    I know! I’m really surprised it doesn’t have more five star ratings

  5. Suz 3 July, 2017 at 10:46 pm

    Seriously? You had no idea popcorn could be made on a stove. Geez. I grew up making it in a cast iron skillet with a pot on the cop as a lid that didn’t fit because we had an assortment of pots. We were poor and the pots were some of my grandparents and ones my folks got as wedding gifts 20 years earlier. We didn’t have a microwave either since they didn’t exist. jiffy pop was gimmicky.

    Try making your corn with lard or bacon grease sometime.

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