Features of cooking delicious treats with their own hands: how to make popcorn from corn at home?

Most modern delicacies, especially for children, are conditionally useful, and more often - frankly harmful because of additives, an excess of sugar and butter. You can change the situation by making these delicacies at home.

In this article, we will look at how to make popcorn from a cob of fresh corn at home and fry it in a frying pan with your own hands, or cook in the microwave at home: it's inexpensive, not difficult and fast, and most importantly - tasty and healthy.

What it is?

What is popcorn, or popcorn, today everyone knows. The name comes from the English words corn - "corn", pop - "bursting with a bang." The honor of the discovery of this dish belongs to the Indians, who were the first to discover that the grain of maize, hitting the fire, explodes, turning into delicious airy white flowers.

IMPORTANT! Corn explodes due to the presence of a drop of starch in it with water. When heated, this water boils, and hot steam breaks the shell, forcing the grain to increase in volume.

There are various types of popcorn:

• Sweet.
• Salty.
• With butter.
• With cheese.
• Color.
• Caramelized.

What grade is needed?

So, how to make popcorn at home? Before proceeding directly to the production, you need to purchase the right sort of corn.

For popcorn, grains of a separate variety, the so-called bursting, are used. It differs from ordinary cobs in a thinner and at the same time durable shell, rich in proteins and fats (that can be prepared from corn on the cob, read here).

A solid wall ensures that the grain does not crack immediately, but first it warms up well and opens up nicely, greatly increasing in volume. In this variety, up to 99% of grains are revealed during cooking!

There are such varieties of corn for popcorn:

1. Volcano.
2. Pop-pop.
3. Zeya - the variety is also interesting for its burgundy color.
4. Ping pong.

The commoners often wonder if it is possible to make popcorn from ordinary corn. Yes, theoretically it is possible. But in practice, this is not worth it. Corn grains can simply burn - this is most often the case with inexperienced housewives, and it is good if they do not burn anyone.

And even if the experiment succeeds, ordinary corn varieties will explode far fewer grains, and those that still open, will be very different from your usual popcorn in appearance and size.

So the purchase of special raw materials will save a lot of time, nerves and save you from wasting products.

Corn fodder for popcorn is definitely not suitable, but it is worth experimenting with a wild plant. It will look like a reduced copy of an ordinary plant - a cob approximately from the palm, not only yellow, but also black, white or even multi-colored.

Instruction

Traditionally, popcorn is cooked in a hot skillet or in a saucepan with a lot of butter. In public places, this delicacy is done in a car with air heating (popper), which reduces the risk of dishes to burn slightly to a minimum. But there is no sense to buy such equipment at home, it is better to use a saucepan or a skillet with high sides. This is even better than the pan - it is easier to lubricate with oil.

Microwave Cooking

The advantage of this method is that the delicacy with ease and quickly cooked in any microwave, is guaranteed not to burn or burn you. But at the same time it will come out much more caloric than on the stove: the grain will have to be poured with oil very abundant, because there will be no opportunity to shake or mix them during the cooking process.

Cooking technology is:

1. Take a few corn cobs. They do not even have to be washed: all the same, during the cooking process at high temperatures everything is sterilized.
2. Choose grains from the cob. Select them carefully: they must all be whole.
3. Take the container, suitable for cooking in the microwave. Pour there oil at the rate of 1 tablespoon per 1 liter capacity.

   Tip: sunflower oil, if desired, you can replace the coconut. It is more beneficial to health and, moreover, will give the treat unusual taste.

4. Place the kernels in the saucepan and mix thoroughly until an oil film is formed on them. The number of grains depends on the volume of the selected dishes, but it should be small! Focus on the fact that 25 grams of grains after cooking will occupy a volume of 1 liter.
5. Close the container tightly with a lid and send it in the microwave. Approximate power - 600-700 watts.
6. Very quickly, claps are heard from the microwave - the corn grains are revealed. Turning off the microwave is necessary after the interval between the claps increases significantly: this will mean that almost all the grains are ready. On average, the cooking time takes 3-4 minutes.
7. Delicacy is ready! It remains only to pull it out of the microwave, add oil and sugar or salt - to taste.

Even easier to cook popcorn, sold in special bags for the microwave. To do this, simply put the package correctly in the microwave and click on "Start".

Watch a video on how to make popcorn in the microwave:

On the griddle

1. Take a skillet with a thick bottom and high sides, the best - cast iron.
2. Pour into her oil - about 3 dessert spoons of 1.5 liters.
3. Pour the husked and rinsed grains into the warmed oil and immediately cover with a lid. Before this, you can hold the grains for a couple of hours in the freezer: this will ensure a sharp temperature drop and a strong lightning-fast explosion of the grains.
4. It is better to remove the pan from the fire while you are falling asleep. After it is necessary to tilt it several times from side to side, the oil will definitely fall on all grains.
5. You can open the pan after the explosions and pops stop completely. Otherwise, you risk getting exploding corn flying across the room. Besides, it can burn you.
6. Pour hot popcorn into a plate, season with salt or sugar. You can, until the treat has not cooled, sprinkle it with grated butter.

Tip: mix popcorn with spices and butter in a closed plastic bag, shaking it several times with the strength.

Aromatic Additives

Any recipe for making popcorn in itself already contains advice to improve the taste of the delicacy with oil and salt or sugar. But there are more tastes of this dish. You can experiment, adding at will a variety of spices:

• cinnamon;
• coconut chips;
• powdered sugar;
• nutmeg;
• paprika and even mixed spices from the bag.

Recipes

Caramel

Children should enjoy caramel popcorn, which can also be made at home:

1. While the grains unfold, melt the butter and dissolve the granulated sugar.
2. Leave the container with the sweet mass on the fire and, while stirring continuously, bring to a golden color.
3. After that, just pour the mass into the popcorn and mix.

Watch the video with the recipe for caramel popcorn:

With chocolate

You can also improve the recipe by preparing caramel with chocolate - to do this, melt the sweet tile or add cocoa powder to the butter and sugar.

With cheese

Another great recipe. And not with an aromatic additive, but with real cheese, finely grated in a hot delicacy. Cheese will melt and create mouth-watering strings that will not change its taste even after solidification.

Acute

It is somewhat more complicated than the previous ones, but it certainly will not leave you or guests indifferent!

1. Take corn syrup (50 ml.), Half a cup of sugar, a little creamy sugar, a pinch of vanilla, salt and chili pepper, as well as 2 liters. water.
2. Ingredients need to be mixed and boiled over low heat until partially thickened (about 20 minutes).
3. After the resulting mixture to pour the popcorn.

How to cook a boiled vegetable?

If you already have boiled corn, but suddenly wanted popcorn, then the best thing is to buy a new ear. Boiled grains of popcorn just will not work: it will not be revealed at all, because the dense shell in the cooking process has already become softened, and the starch with a drop of water has been transformed.

By the way, the reverse process is also impossible: corn, specially grown for popcorn, will not boil down to full readiness. There are a lot of varieties suitable for making popcorn, as well as recipes.

So experiment and enjoy the taste of healthy homemade treats!

Watch the video: How to Make Puffed Rice (December 2024).