Having recently been to St. Jacobs and sampling a handful of fresh kettle corn, I found myself craving for a not-so-small sampling yesterday. The only problem was that I was at home, where there are no kettle corn vendors. Nobody was viciously stirring a ginormous steel pot with a just as ginormous wooden paddle, much like the ones used for canoeing. There was no caramel-y popcorn essence wafting through the air. Bummer, right?
RIGHT?!?!
Nope.
Kettle corn is actually quite simple and totally worth
the extra 4 minutes to make compared to the regular stuff (which is just
as delicious and addictive)!
All you need are four ingredients, which I'm sure you have at home. Vegetable oil, popcorn kernels, sugar of your choice and salt. I used regular granulated sugar, as I recently purchased three 2kg bags, after having run out last week. It was on sale and I needed to stock up!
Anyway, after the kernels have popped, salt gets added. That's how you get that yummy sweet and salty taste. That's why it's so addicting.
After eating my fill and sharing with my family, I decided to bag the rest. Just like they do at the vendors, except mini sized. Eating the kettle corn out of the bag made it even yummier.
Just kidding!
Kettle corn can't even get yummier than it already is. Duh. Har Har Har.
I'm super stoked on making this with different kinds of sugar and salt. Looks like I'm going to have to stock up on popcorn too!
This is what you'll need...
1/4 cup vegetable oil (not olive)
2/3 cup popcorn kernels
1/4 cup sugar (white, brown, coconut, coloured)
salt
You'll also need...
...a cooking vessel. A large steel pot would work, I used a wok as it has a better shape being tapered at the bottom. Make sure whatever you use has a nice fitting lid! Super important. Baking mitts help too if you're scared of getting burned.
- Set the burner to medium high. Place pot/wok on top
- Add in the vegetable oil and put three kernels in it
- Wait until the kernels pop, which signifies the oil is hot enough
- Add in all the kernels and sugar
- Stir until the popcorn starts to pop more continuously and put the lid on
- Remove from heat every 5 seconds to give it a good shake then return it to the heat for another 5 seconds
- Repeat until you think all the kernels have popped (the popping will have slowed down, leaving a couple seconds in between the kernels popping.)
- Shake, shake, shake, have a large bowl ready and DUMP!
- Salt right away and toss to separate the popcorn.
- You're done!
It's super important you shake the pot/wok. This prevents the popcorn and sugar from burning! Enjoy! :)