CALORIE DENSITY: 1½% = 135kcal/(2000ml x 4)
(For comparison sugar = 95%, butter = 180%)
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COST: 10p for 2 litres, 20p for the 4 litres shown in the picture.
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INGREDIENTS
Popcorn 40g: 135kcal (60ml) Asda Wholefoods Popcorn 500g £1.25 [Only 90%of the corn kernels pop so the calories come to 135 not 150.]
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INSTRUCTIONS
| 1 | Remove the lid from a 2 litre square plastic container. Round is ok but square provides a better fit for the kitchen roll to be used as insulation. It should not be wider than 12cm to ensure that the corn kernels are kept within the central part of the turntable where the microwaves are most concentrated! |
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| 2 | Place 5 sheets of kitchen roll at the bottom. |  |
| 3 | Pour 60ml corn kernels onto the 5 sheets. Measure carefully because if you put in more the popping efficiency is adversely affected. |  |
| 4 | Place 5 more sheets of kitchen roll on top. |  |
| 5 | Do not fix on the lid. This allows more microwaves to get to the kernels and therefore pops more of them in less time. | |
| 6 | Place the container in the middle of the turntable and microwave at 800 watts for 2 minutes. |  |
| 7 | Remove the top sheets of kitchen roll. |  |
| 8 | Pour the popcorn into a large plastic container and sprinkle on plenty of salt. This is because you have not coated the popcorn with some high calorie sticky substance which means you will have to shake the container occasionally to redistribute the salt. When you have finished the popcorn the remaining salt may be re-used! You can use granulated sweetener (sucralose) if you prefer but I’ve converted to salt now – it tastes sweet with popcorn! |  |
| 9 | Gorge yourself on 2 litres of popcorn while watching a film on TV dreaming of how much you would have paid in a cinema for that much popcorn which wouldn’t taste nearly as nice as your very own fluffy white still-warm version! Actually you would need to cook twice as much to get a 4 litre drum of popcorn (20cm diameter x 16cm high) as shown in the picture at the top but that’s still only going to cost you only 20p instead of £4 or more! I always carry a backpack when I go to the cinema these days – can you guess what’s in it! |
EFFICIENCY OF THIS METHOD
When you’ve finished eating the popcorn here’s a typical amount of remaining unpopped corn which has for comparison purposes been transferred back to the pot used to measure the 60ml of popcorn that was cooked. That’s around 20 kernels left out of the original 200 or so cooked which means the efficiency of this method is 90%. Because the cooking time is only 2 minutes (as opposed to 2.5 minutes with the lid on) the popped corn are much whiter because they haven’t been over heated by the microwaves!
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With the lid on there are usually around 40 kernels left (an efficiency of 80%) and some of the popped corn are brown or even blackened. Removing the lid must allow more of the microwave power to get to the kernels as there is no other explanation for the shortened time. Leaving the lid off also leaves more room for the popcorn to expand to a full 2 litres rather than being compressed.
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Do not try to cook the unpopped kernels afterwards because if they fail again they will burn through the kitchen roll sheets and melt your plastic container.
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WHY THIS METHOD WORKS BEST
More kernels are popped by this method of cooking than any other because the 5-ply sandwich of kitchen roll sheets provides insulation for the kernels and popped corn during the entire cooking cycle thus ensuring that the heating effect of the microwaves is as efficient as possible. The kitchen roll sheets should not be re-used more than a couple of times because when the sheet dry out this results in some of the popcorn burning presumably because the insulation properties have been adversely affected.
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This is why the microwavable product you can buy (for example Butterkist Salted Microwave Popcorn: £1.98 for 3 packs = 66p each!) comes in a thick brown package which expands as the popped corn expands and is just big enough for the expected amount of popcorn! The main differences with this method are the lack of oil to assist the popping, the resulting lower calorie product and the very much cheaper price!
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COMPARISON WITH A CINEMA BUCKET OF SALTED POPCORN
Calorie Density: 7½% = 1200kcal/(4000ml x 4)
Which means that my version with a density of 1½% is 5 times more satisfying for any chosen amount of calories!
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COMPARISON WITH MICROWAVABLE PRODUCT
Calorie Density: 4½% = 315kcal/(1750ml x 4)
Which means that my version with a density of 1½% is 3 times more satisfying for any chosen amount of calories!
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