Berbere Popcorn
Written by Amani Ali Popping your own popcorn is easy, underrated, and a heck of a lot better than the bagged version, which is full of over-harvested palm oil. Use a neutral oil and a little spice to make a delicious, low-calorie snack that’s especially comforting in the colder months.
Featuring
Chef Sarah Germany Berbere Blend: A salt-free combination of warm spices that coat your tongue with earthy and floral notes, followed by a dry mild heat.
Ingredients
Popcorn kernels
Popcorn seasoning or salt
CSG berbere seasoning
Neutral oil
This recipe is easy to scale. For every 1 tbsp of unpopped kernels, add ⅛ tsp popcorn seasoning or salt and ⅛ tsp CSG berbere spice blend. One tablespoon of unpopped popcorn is about 2 cups popped.
Steps
In a medium-sized pot with a lid, add up to 3 tbsp of popcorn kernels (any more and you risk overflowing the pot).
Add enough oil so that each kernel is coated, roughly 1-3 tsp.
Add the seasonings and stir to dissolve. Adding the seasonings to the oil will cook the spices and bind the seasoning to the popcorn. Cover the pot with the lid and bring it to medium heat. After a few minutes, the kernels will start popping. Every 15 seconds thereafter, lift the pot and move it in a circular motion to evenly distribute the heat and prevent burning.
Once the pops drop in frequency to 1 every few seconds, your popcorn is ready. Find a serving bowl and curl up with your favorite movie. After you try this spiced popcorn, you’ll never go back to bagged.
Homemade popcorn with berbere seasoning
Nutrition Nook:
Corn was domesticated in modern-day Mexico over 10,000 years ago. The earliest evidence of popping corn was by Ancestral Puebloans in 3600 BCE, who lived in modern-day New Mexico and had trade routes through Mexico. In the 1800s Americans would popcorn as breakfast cereal, with milk. Popcorn as a snack food, as Americans know it today, became popular during the Great Depression, when popcorn sellers were some of the only surviving businesses of the time. Movie theatres that adopted popcorn outperformed those that did not sell it. Today, movie theatre popcorn is excessively overpriced, but at the time of its introduction, it was affordable for guests and theatre owners alike.