Regular Popcorn in the Microwave--?

In My Humble Opinion
1
      • Got curious about this a while ago, haven’t ever tried it. In a past thread here somebody mentions that you need “a special container”(–??? to trick the kernels into popping, maybe?) Various pages on the net say to use plain dry kernels in a paper bag, or a glass bowl with a bit of oil and the corn in it and covered with a plate. Anybody tried this? I would prefer the oil route myself, I dunno like totally-dry popcorn. What about butter instead of oil?..
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2

I didn’t know you weren’t supposed to try, so not long ago, after nuking no telling how many Pops Rite bags, I decided to see what some old corn (left from when I was using one of those air poppers) would do. I just reused the Pops Rite bag, put in a handful of the old stuff, folded the bag over a couple of times and put it on 2 minutes.

It popped but had zero taste. Haven’t tried to jazz it up any after that, so I’d like to know the answer, too. Got a jar of the old kernels left.

3

We had a bowl for popping regular popcorn when I was a kid. It was just a really hard plastic bowl (so the popcorn wouldn’t melt into the bottom) and a vented lid. You added popcorn and a little oil and nuked. Unfortunately we made an awful lot of blackened burned popcorn balls in this thing and I was happy when we got the bags of popcorn.

We always melted butter after to pour over the popcorn. Totally bland popcorn?! Ugh!

They also make special dried ears of corn that you put in a bag and pop.

4

I’ve popped regular corn in a paper bag. I don’t put anything in there to pop it. But that doesn’t mean you couldn’t salt and butter it afterwards. Seems to me that if you’re salting and buttering the popcorn, that would probably disguise whatever you popped it in. I don’t think you’d notice that it was popped without oil.

5

I use a microwave popping bowl. Has a heater/concentrator at the bottom. Sounds like this one. Here is another. You can go with/without oil.

Note that some microwave bowls require disposable concentrator pads like this one. Definitely a bad thing IMHO.

Depending on the style and method, you can get quite standard tasting stuff or popcorn much like from an air-popper. It takes several bowls before a person’s taste buds adjust to the texture and flavors of air-pop. So, assume that is the case of microwave poppers. Just keep making more, you’ll get used to it.

6

Paper bag with a little bit of Reddenbacher’s Popping/Topping oil, a bit of salt and some popcorn…stape the top shut and put it in there for the SAME amount of time you would for normal microwave popcorn. Just watch for the slowdown of the pops so you know when to take it out. Works every time.:slight_smile:

IDBB

7

My grandmother wanted some popcorn without oil or salt on it. My mom just took some kernals, put it in a disposible tupperware with the lid slightly opened and stuck it in the microwave. Of course it popped right out of the container, but it still worked.