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.

  • tanin@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    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

    • RalphTheDog@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      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.

        • themeatbridge@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          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.

  • Jakwithoutac@feddit.uk
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    1 year ago

    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

  • Amro@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    @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.

        • xuxebiko@kbin.social
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          1 year ago

          None of them are ghee. They’re all interesterified vegetable fat/ oils with ghee flavour added calling themselves “vegan ghee” to con the gulllible.

          There’s no harm in being vegan, but it is foolish to fall for unhealthy products because they brand themelves as vegan/ vegetable-based.
          Stick to vegetable oils but ffs don’t call them ghee.

          Interesterified oils increase heart-disease risk by lowering HDL (good) cholesterol and raising LDL (bad) cholesterol, (like trans fats do). And they increase the risk of type 2 diabetes by raising fasting blood-glucose levels and decreasing insulin response. They also increase liver cellular stress markers.

          Look up the effects of interesterified vegetable fat/ oils on a search engine of your choice and then read their labels before recommending them.

          • Amro@kbin.social
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            1 year ago

            @xuxebiko
            I’m no expert in these matters. But I can’t imagine ghee (clarified butter) being very healthy either in large quantities. If you are vegan (which I’m not) this a way to taste the op’s popcorn suggestion. I get the feeling you already had an opinion on the whole ghee/fake vegan ghee thing. And al I can say is, in the Indian cuisine, with a relatively large vegan population, fake ghee is a thing. Not some hipster hype.
            This was about taste and cooking. Not about health.
            @fubo

            • xuxebiko@kbin.social
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              1 year ago

              India does not have a ‘large vegan populatiion’, it has a large ‘vegetarian’ population with milk, yoghurt (we call it curd/ dahi), paneer (cottage cheese), and ghee a part of the daily diet. Vegetable fat/ oils used in cooking instead of ghee are usually either raw or filtered or refined. Interestified vegetable oil/ fat is a relatively new product and is used by FMCG co.s as a replacement for palm oil in their products. Interestified vegetable oil also tastes nothing like ghee. Don’t take my word for it, try it out yourself.

              Any Indian touting vegan ghee will get laughed out of their home and get told to use the real thing.

  • lnm225@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    smacks forehead

    That is a great idea! Coconut oil was ok,but kinda odd-flavored for popcorn …

    • meat_popsicle@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      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?

      • NotAPenguin@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        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.

        • xuxebiko@kbin.social
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          1 year ago

          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?

    • NotAPenguin@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      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.

      • Dangdoggo@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        The point is to be conscious about the shit you’re eating and where it comes from, not to demonize butter or animal products on the whole. Factory farming is a horrid practice that I don’t support but I’ve worked with local livestock outfits for 15 years and see the care they put into production. Not every pound of butter is wrought on a life of pure suffering, and to reject the fundamental role of death in life’s process is just a bizarre and sterile approach to living.