Microwave Popcorn review

I just made a batch of microwave popcorn using Alton Brown's recipe. It is definitely better and fresher tasting than storebought packages of microwave popcorn, though it does generate a fair number of dishes to clean. I recommend giving it a shot!

Here's his recipe:
Ingredients

* 1/4 cup good quality popcorn
* 2 teaspoons olive oil
* 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt or popcorn salt
* Sprinkle jalapeno seasoning mix
* Paper lunch bag
* Stapler

Directions

Toss the popcorn with the olive oil, salt, and jalapeno seasoning mix in the paper bag. Fold the top of the bag over and staple the bag twice to close. Place the bag in the microwave and microwave on high for 2 minutes to 3 minutes, or until there are about 5 seconds between pops.

NOTE: Popcorn salt is a super-fine salt that is designed especially for sticking to food such as popcorn. It has the taste of regular table salt, but its granules are much finer.

You can just put some kosher salt in a coffee grinder for a few seconds to make it into popcorn salt.

Dishes? The only dish that I see needing a cleaning is the teaspoon for the olive oil, man you are living the life if that constitutes dishes! This does look pretty fine, most storebought micro pop is pretty terrible, and sort of expensive.

I thought about tossing some kosher salt into my spice grinder, but SWMBO has a bad habit of just sort of throwing the kitchen broom into the closet - last time it wound up sitting with the bristles IN my grinder after knocking off the lid....gotta get a new grinder. I know I can clean it, but it just gives me the willies! I asked her to be more careful in the future, and got the silent treatment for a day. Oh well.

I also decided that it was pretty dumb on my part to use so many bowls, measuring spoons, etc, but it was my first attempt. Future batches will involve pouring the olive oil directly over the kernels in the bag, adding the salt, and hiving a shake. Bowls, measuring spoons, etc over and out.

Still beat the store bought stuff hands down, and I know exactly what was in the bag, instead of a long list of stuff I can't pronounce.

Thanks for this recipe. Amazing I never thought of doing something similar. I will definitely be trying this.

Any issues with the staples in the microwave? Metal and microwaves don't mix, however, there's not much metal in staples.

Bopper said:

Thanks for this recipe. Amazing I never thought of doing something similar. I will definitely be trying this.

Any issues with the staples in the microwave? Metal and microwaves don't mix, however, there's not much metal in staples.

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I've seen this episode of Good Eats and read about it online, and everything says that as long as you use TWO staples it is fine.

dataz722 said:

I've seen this episode of Good Eats and read about it online, and everything says that as long as you use TWO staples it is fine.

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Thanks. I think this is an important note. I could easily see someone putting lots of staples in the bag to keep the popcorn in and creating a light show and potentially damaging the microwave.

No problems using two staples, though the bag did look a bit charred around the edges of the staples. I also switched my method to putting the kernels in the bag then dumping everything else on top of them - no more dishes to do. Just make sure you give stuff a good shake to spread the love around. I also did a batch with some cinnamon sugar, and it turned out pretty good. MY favorite is smoked paprika, but I usually toss more of that in in the end.

I picked this recipe up from here and we have tried it a few times - kids love it, and I'm glad to know the microwave bag chemicals and weird ingredients are not in these. We used some scotch tape to seal the bag - worked fine each time we did it, and no concern about staples.

I love this recipe. It works great!

Gave this a try last night and ended up burning the crap outta the popcorn. I didnt even let it get for 2 minutes and there was still a massive black ball in the middle of the bag. So I threw it out and tossed in a bag of microwave popcorn...

Ive given up entirely on microwave popcorn, I've tried this but never got good results with a bunch of uncooked kernels. I now just cook on the stove in olive oil. Doesn't even need salt and sooooo delicious. Granted you would have a pot to clean, but it seems to make better popcorn if you just wipe it out between batches. Its on my stove all the time and no sense in washing it if its getting heated to a lot of degrees between batches anyway.

All I know is the new Act II Butter Lovers smells like Buttered Barf while it cooks. the aroma of popping corn was the biggest appeal for me now, it's disgusting smelling.

Ohhhh how I miss the diacetyl in my popping corn.

SOB - I've been using a fresh bag of kernels - any idea how long yours have been hanging around? I did a test batch a while ago with some old kernels with less that spectacular results.

Well...they have been sitting around for a while. Prolly about 2+ years! I can cook them in a pot with some oil with no problem...

leghorn said:

I'm glad to know the microwave bag chemicals and weird ingredients are not in these. We used some scotch tape to seal the bag

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brown paperbags should never be used to pop popcorn in the microwave. same with scotch tape. You are releasing bad BAD chemicals into your food (think about the paper emulsifiers... popcorn bags use food-grade and food-safe processes) The chemical in microwave popcorn that is bad for you is the preservative "tertiary butylhydroquinone" (TBHQ). Just look for a local-brand of popcorn and chances are, they won't have it in their product. (Dacytol is also a bad chemical, famous for "popcorn lung"--NO ONE in the US uses that anymore)

Again, find a local popcorn company and you will probably find that they don't need to slather preservatives on their product. If you can't find a local guy, I recommend www.PudenzPopcorn.com and guess what? They have Jalapeno popcorn, chemical and preservative free

Microwave popcorn is alright, but I love my Whirley. Tastey, fast popcorn the old fashioned way. BTW, I never wash mine. It just gets wiped out with a paper towel. Easy.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00004SU35/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

I dunno... A little canola in the bottom of a pot, a cup of popcorn, put a lid on it and in 5 min or less I'm eatin popcorn. Seems just as easy as the microwave...