sweet & savoury popcorn

1. Popcorn Parmigiana, 2. Fairy Bread Popcorn, 3. Chocolate Popcorn, 4. Salty & Sweet Smokey BBQ Popcorn.

This summer, whether you are enjoying the easing of restrictions, holidaying and visiting friends and family, or relishing the peace of a staycation, one thing is a given: most of us have a little extra downtime. Sydney summers mean long (so very long) school holidays and stifling weather that makes it hard to think about turning the oven on to prepare hot food & complicated meals. And if you're like me, you're also looking to tighten your financial belt after the silly season blowout.

Enter homemade popcorn. Delicious, nutritious (hello, high fibre wholegrain!) and cheap. It's the perfect companion to an evening watching a movie, a rainy afternoon playing board games, a quick and impromptu snack when guests - or late night hunger - descend without warning.

This week we've been busy in the Village test kitchen coming up with some scrumptious popcorn flavourings. We worked tirelessly, testing batch after batch of hot, buttery popcorn gussied up with a variety of spices and flavours. Here are our finalists. You're welcome.
​

All recipes make 4 cups popcorn, using ¼ cup unpopped kernels. Please scroll down to the end for our How To Pop guide.

Popcorn Parmigiana
Ingredients:  
1 tbsp tomato powder 
2-3 tsp Italian herbs
1-2 tbsp nutritional yeast
1 tsp chives
2 tsp fine salt

Method:
Mix all ingredients in a small bowl. For optimum coverage and flavour, blitz it in a coffee grinder, nutribullet or similar until fine dust.

In a large bowl, if dry popped, drizzle about 1 tbsp sunflower or other mild flavoured oil over 
4 cups of freshly popped popcorn. Then add the spice mix and toss to combine. If popped in oil, then you can add the flavourings over the popcorn immediately after popping, without any additional oil required.

Salty & Sweet Smokey BBQ Popcorn
Ingredients:
2 tsp smoked paprika 
½ tsp chilli powder (optional)
½ tsp garlic powder 
½ tsp onion powder 
1-2 tsp brown sugar
2 tsp fine salt

Method:
Mix all ingredients in a small bowl. For optimum coverage and flavour, blitz it in a coffee grinder, nutribullet or similar until fine dust.

In a large bowl, if dry popped, drizzle about 1 tbsp sunflower or other mild flavoured oil over 
4 cups of freshly popped popcorn. Then add the spice mix and toss to combine. If popped in oil, then you can add the flavourings over the popcorn immediately after popping, without any additional oil required.

Fairy Bread Popcorn
Ingredients:
1-2 tbsp icing sugar
½ tsp salt
1-2 tbsp hundreds & thousands
2 tbsp melted butter

Method:
Whisk the icing sugar in a bowl to remove any lumps. Add salt and half of the hundreds & thousands, stir to combine.

In a large bowl, drizzle the melted butter (or mild flavoured oil) over 
4 cups freshly popped popcorn. Now add the sugar mixture and toss to combine. Sprinkle remaining hundreds & thousands over the top.

Chocolate Popcorn
Ingredients:
1 tbsp icing sugar
2 tbsp alkalised cocoa powder
2 tbsp melted butter (optional)

Method:
Whisk the icing sugar and cocoa in a bowl to remove any lumps. 
In a large bowl, drizzle the melted butter over 
4 cups freshly popped popcorn. Now add the sugar mixture and toss to combine.

PIMP MY RECIPE

Make some Popcorn Salt!
Popcorn salt is just regular salt, but ground extremely fine. 

The rule of thumb for flavouring and salting popcorn is: the finer the grind, the better coverage, adhesiveness and flavour you'll get.

You can buy it at some fancy food outlets, but honestly it's so easy to make. Just pop some salt in your coffee grinder, nutribullet or similar and blitz until it's a fine dust. Pour it into a jar and keep it in your pantry arsenal.
I always have popcorn salt on hand. It's good not only for popcorn but also for when I toast seeds and nuts for a snack. 

Bounty 
Add some Dessicated coconut to the chocolate popcorn recipe above 

Vegan Cheese and Chive 
2 tbsp nutritional yeast plus 2 tsp dried chive flakes. Blitz til fine.

Cinnamon 
Mix 2 tsp ground cinnamon with 1 tbsp icing sugar and (optional) ½ tsp salt Whisk til fine and lump free. 

HOW TO POP
There are different methods for popping corn. All are good; it just comes down to individual preference: 

The traditional way is by using a covered saucepan on the stove. Add 1 - 2 tbs of sunflower oil and heat the saucepan over a medium - high heat. Add a couple of kernels to the pan. Once these begin to pop add the rest of the popcorn and put the lid on the saucepan. Once the popcorn begins to pop, regularly lift the saucepan and give a shake and then place back on the heat. If you don’t keep it moving you risk it burning. Once the popping slows and there is hardly any more popping, remove from the heat.

You can also use a sealed paper bag in the microwave. SBS Food has a great fail-safe guide to popping corn in your microwave using a paper bag.

You can also microwave popcorn using any microwave-safe lidded container, like a microwave rice cooker, using the paper bag cooking times above. Every microwave is  little different and it took me a few goes to get it right. My perfect popcorn formula is 1 minute 50 seconds on 90% power, as my microwave is very powerful. (That's not a brag, just a fact. It's not like I open with that on a date or job interview).