Popcorn In A Wok Coconut Oil
Coconut oil is a colorless, semi-solid fat extracted from the flesh of the coconut. Although coconut oil is classified as a saturated fat, unlike the long-chain fatty acids found in other animal and vegetable-based oils, coconut oil does not affect blood cholesterol. In fact, researcher Mary Enig refers to coconut oil as a functional food, because of its health-enhancing properties. Coconut oil has a smoke point comparable to extra virgin olive oil. For optimal health benefits, choose organic, unrefined coconut oil for your cooking needs.
Popcorn In A Wok Coconut Oil For Sale
I've been perfecting my popcorn popping technique over the past few months, and I'm here to share the knowledge I've gained.
I'll tell you right away this isn't the healthiest way to prepare popcorn. You can't beat air popped for low-fat, high fiber, whole grain goodness - but this isn't that kind of popcorn.
This is for tasty, movie theater style popcorn.
There are a lot of variables, but absolutely key to perfect popcorn is coconut oil. Regular vegetable oil, peanut oil, safflower oil - those will all pop popcorn just fine, but the mouth feel and the smell will be lacking. Something about coconut oil unlocks the goodness in popcorn. I can't stress the importance of this enough.
Coconut oil, however, is not the easiest thing in the world to find. It is semi-solid at room temperature. I found it at an international market in the 'India' section. I just read on another forum that someone found it at WalMart, but I haven't looked there to verify. No regular grocery stores near me stock it. It looks a little like bacon grease; white, cloudy and soft. You only need a spoonful to make popcorn though. It melts clear and has a very, very faint smell of suntan lotion. If you can't find a local source, you can get it on line. The on-line sources come in a couple of different formats. You can get the oil by itself in gallon jugs. The stuff I've seen looks more liquid, so I'm wondering if it has an additive. It also tends to be colored redish yellow with beta-carotene. The other option is pre-mixed packs. These have the salt, oil and popcorn all pre-measured. They are made for commercial poppers, but they'll work fine in your pot too.
Speaking of popper pots, this is also extremely important. I've heard great things about the 'Whirly Pop'. This has a built-in stirrer. Fancy, but you don't need it. You need a fairly wide, bowl-shaped vessel. The sloped sides will help unpopped corn find it's way to the bottom. The width will help the popped corn spread out, and won't trap steam. It should have a heavy bottom to help regulate heat, and lid with vents for steam. I use an 11' wok that I picked up at Aldi for about $8. The shape and heavy bottom are perfect - but the lid is lacking as it only has 1 small steam vent hole.
Steam is also citical to popcorn making. Popcorn 'pops' because of steam pressure. Once the kernels explode, that steam has to go somewhere. If you trap it in with your popcorn, it will get tough and sort of gummy. I've been getting around it by 'venting' the lid during cooking - just quickly lifting an edge up, once enough popcorn has popped to kind of help keep the exploding ones in the pot. I'm not sure how difficult it would be to drill more holes in a glass lid, but if anyone has advice on that, I'd love to hear it.
The popcorn itself is important too. I like Orville, but it's expensive. Bagged popcorn is cheaper, but moisture content is critical to popcorn, so a tightly closed container helps, so I just re-use my Orville Reddenbacher jar, but at the moment I'm using Cousin Willie's and it seems to do just as well. I like yellow corn flavor better than white, but white is more tender.
So you melt your coconut oil over medium high heat. Once it's all melted and had a minute to get to temperature, I add my popcorn. The ratios are a little tricky, but you'll get the hang of it quickly. You don't want kernels floating in oil, but you don't want too many that aren't covered either.
When the first ones begin to pop, it's time to shake. You're just getting the unpopped corn to the bottom and keeping the popped stuff moving so it doesn't burn. If you've got a tight-fitting lid, try to vent it as often as you can. Wait until you hear the popping slow down, and take it off the heat. Cary over will keep popping for 20 seconds or so, but dump it into a bowl fairly quickly, as it will burn if you leave it unmoving.
Finally we get to seasonings and toppings. Of course you can get really creative here; brewer's yeast and Old Bay seasoning are a couple of weird ones I've heard of. Me? I'm a traditionalist. For movie theater popcorn it has to be Flavacol. It's a butter flavored, extremely fine-grain salt. I put it in right with the coconut oil and unpopped corn. If you've got a GFS store near you, they sell Flavacol, (but not coconut oil) but if not, the same on-line vendors that sell coconut oil all sell Flavacol as well. It's sort of an industry standard.
I don't add 'butter' topping at the movies, but if you do, and you're looking to re-create that, you're going to want to look for a product called Ghee. Check your international markets for jars of this wonderful stuff. Ghee is a shelf-stable variety of clarified butter. Heat and pour.
Here's some on-line vendors I've found:
Gold Medal Popcorn supplies They have Flavacol and all-in-one premixed coconut oil kits.
Snappy Popcorn. They have 1 lb jars of colored coconut oil, as well as Flavacol and lots of other stuff..
Enjoy!
Jun 30, 2016 Coconut Oil. There’s a reason why movie popcorn is so delicious: it is made with coconut oil. Even though it’s not so healthy, coconut oil is the go-to oil vendors use when selling popcorn to the public. Coconut oil has lots of fat, but it’s not all bad. Trace elements of several healthy vitamins and minerals can be found in it. Jan 19, 2011 Directions. Pour the oil and just a few popcorn kernels into a 14-inch flat-bottomed wok (or other large pot), cover, and place over medium heat until 1 or 2 kernels begin to pop, about 1 1/2 minutes. (To reduce cleanup, wrap the inside of the wok’s lid in aluminum foil. Otherwise the inside surface of the lid will be spattered with oil. Jun 03, 2019 If you’re new to making popcorn on the stove, or if you’re an old hat, you’ll want to check this recipe out. By using my step-by-step instructions you will have perfectly popped coconut oil popcorn made on the stove with minimal (if not zero!) unpopped kernels.