Why YSK: Popcorn fans often want a buttery flavor, but plain butter is a bad choice for popping popcorn in a pot, because the proteins and sugars smoke and burn around the same temperature where it’s hot enough to pop the kernels.
Ghee, or Indian-style clarified butter, is butter that’s been simmered and the milk solids (proteins and sugars) skimmed off. This leaves a clear yellow oil that doesn’t smoke when it’s heated and doesn’t go rancid quickly, but has a distinct toasty butter flavor.
Vegetable oil is either flavorless or faintly bitter, and some high-temperature vegetable oils tend to start polymerizing (i.e. becoming plastic) when heated in small amounts. This is also not good for popcorn.
Good-quality popcorn popped in ghee reliably produces lots of “butterfly” popcorn with few unpopped “duds” and no scorched kernels or batches ruined by smoke.
Try it! I’m sure not going back to canola oil.
After reading this post a few days back, I was inspired to get some Ghee and try it out. Absolutely delicious, thank you @fubo@lemmy.world!
For any dairy intolerant or vegan people here you can get a similar effect by clarifying a vegetable spread like Flora and adding salt until it tastes ‘buttery’ enough for you
I’ve always just used avocado oil. Sometimes coconut oil but that obviously leaves a faint hint of coconut that not everyone likes. I’ll try ghee next time but I never heard of anyone trying to make pop corn with just butter in the pan. That sounds like a mistake folks only make once! lol
The makers of my commercial-grade popper recommend coconut oil. Like you, I am interested in trying ghee. It’s good to just have a bottle of that stuff handy for lots of things.
I think ghee is clarified butter.
They are pretty much the same thing. Clarified butter can be skimmed as soon as the milk solids begin to separate. Ghee is cooked until the solids become browned and settle to the bottom, giving it more of a nutty flavor.
Coconut oil
We use non-virgin olive oil. High smoke point, but good flavor.
@fubo
I agree. Ghee is very nice for popcorn. And for everyone who isn’t into milk products, vegetable ghee has the same qualities and flavor profile.what is vegetable ghee?
smacks forehead
That is a great idea! Coconut oil was ok,but kinda odd-flavored for popcorn …
Since ghee is so expensive, I usually do coconut oil and ghee mixed!
I love ghee on my stovetop popcorn! A wok works great!
YSK: Cows are raped & slaughtered for butter
YSK: I did not ask
why are you minimizing rape & sexual assault?
Being against sexual assault of cows minimizes it how?
By equating artificial insemination in cattle to rape.
You’re just using shock tactics to garner attention. Do you even care about how your minimization affects rape & sex assualt survivors?
Sexually assaulting cows is bad just as sexually assaulting people is bad, no minimizing.
Cows can be raped?
Do we send cow rapists to cow jail? If a cow is in a field with a bull, do we arrest the bull pre- or post- mount?
Come the fuck on buddy, obviously they are talking about humans forcefully impregnating cows to force them to produce milk.
Humans have the capability to understand the consequences of our actions, other animals don’t.
Even on the fediverse people absolutely refuse to hear about the animal abuse they support everyday…
Come the fuck on people, stop being reactionary and think about it for a minute.