Spicy Popcorn, Home made!

You can buy a bag of pre-made popcorn, stuff it into your microwave, and let it pop, but let’s face it. The smell of it isn’t that pleasant, the taste not so great either, and queer chemicals abound.  It’s actually silly easy to make it from scratch with healthy ingredients.  A popcorn popper and a microwave are the only gizmos you need, though I also use a garlic slicer and a cheese grater to speed up the process.

This recipe takes about seven minutes, and makes a good amount of popcorn for four people, or an extravagant amount for two, or an overwhelming amount for one.  If you want to go full vegan, skip the ghee or butter and use just olive oil, but only cook half and add the other half raw, for optimum health benefits.

My garlic slicer makes this a snap!

2 to 3 tablespoons ghee or good quality butter

1 to 3 fresh garlic cloves, sliced almost paper thin

½  or (to taste)teaspoon dried chilies

1 teaspoon crushed oregano

¼ teaspoon salt

1 inch cube Parmesan cheese, grated

¼ cup best quality olive oil

¼ cup popcorn kernals, or fill machine to its limit

My cheese grater makes this even easier.

In a microwavable container, mix ghee, garlic and chilies.  If you don’t have ghee, use a good quality butter.  Microwave for about one minute.  Add the salt.  It will bubble up a little.  If the garlic is still white, microwave for another 15 seconds, so the garlic is a pale gold.  Any darker would get bitter, but barely gold will make for delicious garlic chips. 

Garlic chips should be barely golden.

While ghee is still very hot, put popcorn into popcorn maker and start machine.  As it’s beginning to pop, add olive oil to the ghee. 

Dribble ghee mixture over popcorn as it arrives in a bowl.  Start sprinkling in grated Parmesan.  

Continue to dribble and sprinkle, and then stuff some popcorn directly into the oil container and stir to get every last molecule of deliciousness back into the popcorn.  Don’t waste a drop of that delicious topping.

Eat right away.  We like this in front of a movie, preferably with a glass or two of nice, red wine.  Lazy weekends are so heavenly.  We sometimes don't even bother with dinner when we're having this.

I use a maniac amount of popcorn to keep the oil levels down, but you shouldn't!